Empires of Sand

by Empires of Sand (retail) (epub)

  The Tuareg had said yes.

  * * *

  The killing ground was carefully chosen. Mahdi squatted, squinting into the sun’s glare. His practiced eye roamed the amphitheater of rock with its tamarisk trees at the bottom, near the well called Tadjenout tin Tarabine. They would make camp to the west, over the ridge where they would not be seen. From there they could enter the arena at will, with hidden rock defiles obscuring the entrances and providing cover.

  His hand rested on the sword sheathed in its ornate scabbard. The leather on the hilt was worn smooth. His hand was comfortable there, more so than on the rifle in his other hand. Rifles. Tools of cowards. But Attici had insisted, and Attici was in line to succeed one day as amenokal, and his word had carried the argument.

  Mahdi was satisfied. For its sin of arrogant intrusion the advancing French expedition would pay a heavy price. Tadjenout was perfect. Tamrit and Attici would be pleased.

  It was the first moment of satisfaction Mahdi had felt in weeks. Ever since the djemaa he had been brooding. The night Daia had come to join him, he had greeted her with joy in his heart. He showered her with gifts he had chosen with such care – earrings from Hausaland, a robe from Timbuktu. He had taken great pleasure in giving them to her and had expected… well, something more than cool indifference. And then as the night fell and the fire blazed he had seen it for the first time. He was not a clever man around women. He felt awkward with them and did not hope to fathom their mysteries. But he did not need to be clever to see Daia’s look of longing, to know it was not for him. Moussa sat apart from them, talking quietly with his friend Taher and drinking tea. He seemed oblivious to Daia. When Mahdi caught the first gaze she was so discreet he nearly missed it. Then, more carefully, he watched until chance was eliminated. She tried to conceal it, but to Mahdi, who worshiped her, who was so acutely aware of her every look and movement, it was something that she could not hide. And then he worried that if he could see it everyone else could as well. Even as he seethed he forced patience upon himself.

  Mahdi had no idea that a mere look in a woman’s eyes could cause him such pain. He was angered by his weakness. How could any woman affect him so? It was a helpless, dull ache he felt as she unknowingly turned the blade of her indifference inside him. He had no weapons to fight such a look, or such a feeling. He tried to will it not to be, but it would not leave him. He tried to catch her attention, then, to say interesting things, witty and clever things. But he knew he was forcing it, that he was not being interesting and that she was only being polite as she listened.

  His hand squeezed the hilt of his sword. Should he kill Moussa? It would be easy enough to take him in the middle of the night, to leave the certain signs of Shamba, so that she would not know. No. Unthinkable. He would make a fair fight of it and kill him cleanly, with honor, something he would have to do sooner or later in light of the blow Moussa had struck in the djemaa. That he could defeat Moussa in single combat was without doubt. Yet Moussa seemed oblivious to Daia’s glances; he seemed not to return them. Did he scheme behind his veil? Did they sneak away at night, mocking him?

  “I have seen your gaze,” he said to her when finally they were alone, his eyes wounded, his meek voice belying a man so quick to fury.

  “I do not understand your meaning,” Daia lied, her heart beating quickly at the accusation. Had she been so transparent?

  “Tonight in camp,” Mahdi said, “during the meal, even as we talked together, you could not take your eyes from from him.”

  “Your imagination is active,” she said, her face reddening. “I have sworn myself to you, Mahdi. Have I not said it?”

  “It is so, yet you do not look at me with the same eyes, Daia. Your heart does not live in concert with your words. I will kill him and be done with it.”

  “No! You must not!” She said it too quickly, knowing he was judging her, but she couldn’t help it. She feared for Moussa’s life. Mahdi had killed men for much less. Somehow it had all gone too far. Her heart had led the way and she had followed, and now everything precious was at risk. Was she such an easy woman? Could she be so easily shaken from her path?

  And in that instant she knew she must put the longings of her heart aside, that she must give up her forbidden thoughts and remember her honor. I must not go farther down this road, she told herself. I will not betray Mahdi. Nor will I jeopardize Moussa, who seems anyway indifferent to me. I have cast my lot.

  “He has done nothing to deserve your wrath, Mahdi. Leave him be.”

  “On your journey with him from Ideles—?”

  “It was simply a journey. We traveled together, Mahdi, from one place to another. Moussa conducted himself honorably. That is the truth of the matter. I have pledged myself to you, and so shall it be.”

  He heard the firmness in her voice, yet did not believe it.

  “I forbid you to travel with him again.”

  At that Daia bristled. “Forbid! Is this the lesson your Senussi teach? Is it what makes you disappear with them for weeks at a time, to learn how they treat women? Would you wave the Koran at your wife like a club? I am not some ass, Mahdi, to be prodded before your stick! You may forbid nothing! It is not your right to permit or forbid a thing to me! Save your orders for the imrad, for those who will obey!”

  “Do not slander the Senussi, Daia. They are holy men. Their cause is just.”

  “Holy men who teach disrespect?”

  “I do not wish to argue the matter. I did not mean to order you.”

  “I would favor it if you learned persuasion, Mahdi. It will serve us better.”

  Mahdi felt helpless before her. The Senussi would take no such insolence from a mere woman and would mock him for his weakness. But she was no mere woman, and most of the Senussi were Arabs who did not understand the ways of the Tuareg, a people who were too proud, too independent to submit their will to that of another – even fully to Allah. He prayed for guidance but no guidance came. He was her captive, not she his. She would never be pliant. No Ihaggaren woman would ever be, but in her it went further. She was free, too free. Marriage would not shackle her to him, but he prayed it would help.

  He sought to make amends. “I am sorry, Daia. I have spoken without thinking. I did not mean to offend you.” When she nodded but said nothing, he went on. “We shall be married after the French matter is disposed of,” he told her, then hurriedly added, “if that is your wish, of course.”

  “Yes,” she said. Again she told herself she was lucky to have him, but all the same she was glad of the French coming, of the time it would give her. “Of course. I have said as much. After the French.” When they parted neither of them was satisfied.

  For the next few weeks the conflict consumed him as he crisscrossed the desert, making preparations. It preoccupied him in his discussions with Tamrit, who accused him of inattention. It distracted him even when he prostrated himself in prayer before his God.

  His concentration had never failed him. Yet now, despite his efforts, there was only Daia. Yes, he would marry her immediately. But it was not enough.

  Moussa. He bristled with hatred for the ikufar.

  Moussa. Had not Moussa stolen the amenokal from him? His own father? Did it matter whether Moussa had tried to do it, or did it only matter that it had happened, that his father had come to banish Mahdi to the ashes of indifference, that he had come to welcome only Moussa in his tent, as if Moussa and not Mahdi were his only son?

  Would it matter now, with Daia? Could he now let Moussa take away this woman, as he had taken away his father?

  It was not enough to marry. He would have to deal with Moussa.

  * * *

  The caravan pressed on, having nearly completed its passage through the Amadror, the vast sizzling flat of gravelly desolation. The mountains of the Hoggar loomed at last in the south. The instant Attici’s guides had arrived the procession had changed course twenty degrees more to the east. The officers noted the change and were uneasy, since the Iforass had be
en so steady in bearing, but fell silent when the colonel asked which of them might show the way instead.

  The Amadror began to lose its anesthetizing sameness. Occasional patches of sand and even some acacia trees were visible. Every so often they would see a bird, or several flying together, and a great shout would arise, men pointing and laughing and talking.

  The flat became more rolling, and the rolling became hills, and the hills became the Hoggar, its odd volcanic peaks and spires struggling through the almost iridescent violet haze that seemed to emanate from them. They had never seen such a place, and rode enraptured. The camels stepped tenderly through the rocks, which had changed from smooth gravel to rough cobbles to razor-sharp stones, at first spaced well apart but then closer and hard to avoid. It slowed their progress, and at times the caravan stretched out over two kilometers, a great undulating jumble of humps and baskets and bags and men, winding through the craggy passages and long wadis. The camels groaned as if mortally wounded when they cut their feet, their cries returning in haunted echoes from the rock walls. They shifted themselves in exaggerated motions to favor their feet, sometimes losing their loads altogether or having them slip out of place until their tenders had to stop and adjust them. In the worst places the men walked, leading their mounts by hand.

  Late one morning they arrived at a large open shelf in the mountains. They were close to a huge peak, called Serkout by the guides, who answered questions rarely, and then grudgingly. One of them stopped to talk with Flatters. He pointed to the edge of the shelf, where a water-stained basin had been cut into the granite.

  “We had hoped to find water in this guelta,” he said to the colonel while El Madani translated. “The rains have been light and it is dry. We cannot continue without water. We have been four days since finding it, and on our path there is no more for seven days.” He pointed to a valley that disappeared into the mountains. “There is a well there called Tadjenout. An hour and a half by camel. We must fill the bags.”

  “Very well then,” the colonel replied, gazing up the valley. “We shall make the detour.”

  “No.” The Targui shook his head firmly. “The route is too difficult for meharis carrying packs. You must send them with only water bags and leave the other supplies here until our return.”

  As El Madani translated he felt compelled to offer the colonel a bit of unsolicited advice. He was normally silent, but on matters that affected his men he had no fear of speaking. “Begging the colonel’s pardon, sir,” he said.

  “Madani?”

  “If the colonel pleases, perhaps it would be better to go to the well in force. I do not trust these men. This is a well-known ploy of the Tuareg. They seek to split our force, to weaken it. There are no scouts on our flanks to—”

  The colonel bristled. “That will be quite enough, Madani. You are out of place.” It wasn’t the first time they had made a similar arrangement for obtaining water. It seemed reasonable in difficult terrain. “When I require your instruction on deployment I shall ask for it.” His voice was cutting, piercing the front ranks of the men listening behind. Some of the tirailleur’s men heard the rebuke, but accepted it with no change of expression, no thought of argument. He had raised the point; the colonel had rejected it. There was no disgrace in that. The colonel turned to Captain Masson, who agreed with El Madani about not splitting the force but had long since stopped arguing with the colonel.

  “Captain! Unload the baggage here. All camels to carry water skins. Cavour and Dennery with fifteen men to provide cover and load water. DeVries and five more to stand watch on the piste to the well. Dianous to stand command of the base camp with the rest of the men and supplies. You and I shall take the horses. The doctor and engineers may accompany us as they please.”

  With that the colonel started up the hill, toward the well of Tadjenout.

  * * *

  It was the fourth week of Moussa’s journey. Since his departure from Abalessa he had handled the negotiations for a trade of salt and camels with the Kel Owi in Admer. He had then escorted a small caravan from that village to Timissao. After that had been the resolution of a dispute over arable land between vassal families of the Dag Rali and the Iklan Tawsit. All of it the normal business of the Ihaggaren, yet all of it meaningless. He was livid at having been ordered on such errands to the south at the very instant the French were approaching from the north. He knew what it meant to his reputation and felt the stain upon his honor. The amenokal doesn’t trust me. He had done nothing to deserve the mistrust except to be born half one thing and half another. It was the same disease of the blood that had plagued him all his life.

  There had been one bright spot in his journey. A trader in Admer had showed him a rare manuscript, carefully crafted and beautifully bound, a collection of fables the trader said had been transcribed by a marabout in Egypt. Moussa didn’t know the truth of it, for he could not read Arabic, but as he turned the tooled-leather volume over in his hands he instinctively knew its richness. He thought of Daia when he saw it, of the hours she spent teaching the children of her ariwan. He could imagine her reading to them from this book, and the vision brought him pleasure. He wrapped it in oilcloth and intended to present it to her as a wedding gift.

  His weeks of travel had not dimmed the sadness and longing he felt when he thought of her. Mahdi had come to him late at night after the djemaa. Moussa expected a fight after the blow he had delivered in the amenokal’s tent, but Mahdi was strangely subdued. He began to ask Moussa about his intentions, but it was clearly difficult for him and his question died of awkwardness before it was asked. Moussa understood what he wanted.

  “She has made it plain to me that you are to be married. Is it not so? I will not interfere, Cousin.” The wedding had been announced the next morning by the amenokal himself. Events had been set into motion. Difficult as it was, he would give her what she wanted.

  But then, as he was leaving the camp for his trip to the south, he had stopped to bid his mother farewell. They had talked about trivial things. Serena had known the look in his eye. “You seem preoccupied,” she said.

  He shrugged. “It is nothing.”

  “Oh,” she said, working at her leather. “I thought it might be Daia.”

  “Well, it is not,” he said too quickly. Moussa tried to escape his mother’s gaze, but he had never been able to do that successfully. Now he saw no need to pretend. “She is Mahdi’s woman. They are to be married. She has said it, and Mahdi has said it.” Serena put down her knife.

  “And what have you said?”

  “That I will not interfere.”

  “I am not asking of your head, Moussa. I am asking of your heart.”

  “It is the same thing.”

  She smiled at that. “I don’t know how you can be so quick to show a camel your feeling for it, Moussa, and so slow to show a woman.” She stood and began preparing tea, stirring at the ashes of the fire until they glowed. “When I met your father the amenokal told me I was being selfish, that I was thinking only of myself when I said I wanted to marry him. He said what I wanted to do was wrong. The other nobles and the marabouts all agreed with him. My own head knew he was right. My heart alone did not. But I knew from the moment I met Henri that I would listen to my heart. Do I have to tell you which was right?”

  He had thought about it every day since then, about what might have been, about what might be. Malish, mektoub, the imam would say. Never mind, it is written. He shrugged to himself. Is anything ever written? Is anything ever done? He dumped his cold tea into the ash of his fire and rose to hunt with Taka. He sensed rather than saw the mehari approaching across the desolate stretch of plain through which he had been traveling. He pulled his brass spyglass from the bag slung at his camel’s side and steadied his arm on the saddle as he trained it upon the rider’s blurry image. It was Lufti, riding like a man whose mount was on fire. Eventually the slave saw him and waved.

  “Hamdullilah, I found you, sire, praise Allah!” The mehari was
wild-eyed with exertion, its breath labored and hard.

  “You push your mount severely in this heat,” Moussa said, concerned. “Is all well in the ariwan?”

  “Yaya, sire, all is well, but the Mistress Serena threatened me plenty if I did not find you quickly. I missed you by only a night in Timissao. Then, as Allah is my witness, I lost your track!” There was a mixture of pride and incredulity in his voice. For Moussa to have obscured his passage sufficiently to lose his teacher in such things was a matter of some note. “You have learned well, sire, if your servant may say it! No Tebu devil will find you, that is sure, yaya! There was a time… but never mind, never mind!” He slid quickly from his mount and drew a leather pouch from beneath his robe. He opened it and carefully withdrew a letter.

  “The mistress sends you a message, sire, and asks that it be read in haste.” Moussa saw the clear hand of his mother on the paper:

  Moussa, I hope this letter finds you well. I write in French in order that no one else may know this news. I have been shown a letter by the wife of the amenokal. It was received from the French expedition, addressed to Ahitagel. He had already departed for In Salah, so I was asked to open and interpret it. The letter was in response to an earlier message from Ahitagel. It dealt with a point of rendezvous, with a route proposed by the French. There was also a request for a meeting. At the end there were names of some of the officers of the expedition. One of those names – I had to read it over and over to be certain – was Lieutenant Paul deVries. I could not believe it! His age would be right, of course, for him to have become an officer in the army. How well I can see him in uniform, even after what happened to his father. It has been the way of your father’s family for generations. And it would be like him to have found his way here. Oh, Moussa. After these many years of silence, can it be anyone other than our Paul?