“And what are you looking at?” she’d said, glowering.
“Nothing.” Davud had turned and headed for the foredeck, hiding a smile as he went.
Breyu’s Sickle was a land formation to the southeast of Sharakhai, and its handle lay along the path that led to Ishmantep. From here it would take only ten or twelve days of sailing to reach Sharakhai, but Rasime had been taking her time so far, sailing across the desert in a zigzag fashion, and he saw no reason the pattern would change. Likely they were biding their time before reaching a certain location on a certain date.
He was proved right on the twenty-fifth day from Ishmantep. They crested a dune and spotted a line of blue water that cut the desert like a knife. The crew raised their hands to the sky and yipped like jackals. One stood on the mainmast yardarm and took off his turban, whipping the cloth over his head in celebration as his long hair flapped behind him. High grasses, bushes, and palm trees edged the oasis. And there were three other ships resting near it: a large schooner and two smaller dhows.
“Who are they?” Davud asked Rasime.
Anila was on deck as well, and closer than Rasime, but Davud had given up on talking to her. These days, his questions to her were answered in one of two ways: monosyllabic grunts or cold stares.
Rasime grinned at Davud, her auburn hair flowing in the wind. “Our brothers and sisters, if you hadn’t guessed.”
“Why are we meeting them?”
“By the gods, Davud, there’s no need to look so scared.” This had come from Anila.
Rasime gave Anila an uncharitable look, then regarded Davud with a strange mixture of sympathy and something like disgust. She thought Davud should stand up to her. And maybe he should, but he didn’t have it in him. He’d gotten Anila into this. She had every right to be angry.
“Our purpose is our own,” Rasime said, and then set to ordering the crew to prepare for meeting the other ships.
Davud had some guesses about why they’d gathered here, the most likely being that they were transferring information, and perhaps orders, from Hamzakiir. Another, much more worrying possibility was that they’d come to transfer Davud and Anila to some other ship. Davud didn’t know whether he should be nervous about the possibility, but he did know that Rasime’s crew hadn’t treated them unkindly, and he’d much rather they remain where they were.
The Burning Sand had soon joined the other three ships, the four of them creating a border of sorts. Between them, a celebration began. A fire was lit. Two small skiffs that had been sent out scouting returned with a bone crusher nearly falling off the back of one skiff’s transom. It was quickly butchered and placed on a spit to turn, other cuts of the meat skewered with onions, carrots, and dried prunes. Pots were set to boiling and turnips and rice and onions were thrown in. Dried fruit and pickled vegetables were laid out and flatbread served.
As the sun was setting, the food was ready at last. Rasime called out, an ululation picked up by the other women, who easily outnumbered the men. More and more gathered, perhaps four or five dozen in all. They ate and shared stories. They danced around the fire while a rebab, an oud, a flute, a rattle, and a host of skin drums played lively songs from the desert. Davud had heard many of the songs, but not like this. In Sharakhai, they were often composed, rehearsed affairs. These were more loose in nature, allowing those who joined in some freedom to grant the song their own energy and emotion. Away from the fire, five women danced on their own, shoving away any man who dared come near, laughing each time they did so.
Liquor flowed. Mostly araq, but also rice wine from Mirea, whiskey from somewhere south along the Austral Sea, and a sour eastern wine that Davud had to admit was quite good. Many gathered around a boy who ground dark kahve beans and mace together to make a hot drink that tasted rich and smelled richer. More than the kahve itself, which was wonderful, the boy ground the beans in a rhythmic, almost musical pattern. It was common in the desert tribes to do so. In fact, each tribe had its own unique rhythm, marking it for those who knew how to pick them out. The boy’s rhythm was Tribe Kadri’s, which didn’t necessarily invalidate Davud’s theory that Rasime and her crew were from Tribe Salmük. The Moonless Host, after all, counted men and women from all twelve tribes among their soldiers.
Shishas were set upon the sand, and around each, a ring of rich carpets. Many flocked to these, sitting and smoking and telling stories or listening for a time. The smell of the tabbaq was so heady in some places there were those who simply stopped to admire it, allowing the smoke to pass around them. Davud didn’t smoke, but he sat by a shisha that gave off a particularly rich smell. Rasime was near him. Thick, gray smoke trailed from her nostrils. She smiled like a great mountain dragon while holding the stained ivory mouthpiece for Davud to take. He was about to decline when she poked him with it. The others lying along the carpets laughed, including Anila and Tayyar. After a moment, Davud laughed as well, and accepted the shisha pipe.
How very strange, Davud thought as he drew a deep breath. He had no doubt everyone here knew who he and Anila were, knew as well the orders surrounding them, but no one acted aggressively toward them. In fact, it was as if they were both part of the Al’afwa Khadar. He felt the tingling burn of the smoke as it filled his lungs. He coughed, which prompted more laughs, but then he took a deeper pull and blew it up and into the dusk-filled sky.
“And now you must tell a tale,” Rasime said, her eyes full of mischief.
Davud was more than a little tipsy, and wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “Pardon me?”
An old man across from Davud, lying on a carpet in a voluminous khalat, chuckled, his whole body shaking from it. The rest smiled, but Rasime grabbed the back of his head, pulled him in, and gave him a big wet kiss. He felt her tongue slip softly between his lips, tasted her and the smoke of the tabbaq they’d shared. When she drew away, a thing Davud suddenly and strongly regretted, she regarded him anew. “And now it must be a love story,” she said, and shoved him away.
He fell backward onto the carpet, his feet kicking up sand as he struggled for purchase. The laughter rolled louder as Davud pulled himself back up, joining in on the laughter himself. “A love story . . .”
Many nods as the shisha was passed round.
“Very well,” he said. “A love story it shall be.” He waited for a moment, knowing already the story he would tell but pretending to fumble a bit to build the anticipation. “An age ago,” he finally began, “there was a man named Bashshar, favored by Tulathan, blessed by Rhia.” Immediately, several around the circle, who hadn’t been paying much attention, turned and took note. Some whistled, while others slapped their knees in appreciation. Bashshar was a famous figure in the eastern desert, and was credited with many great feats, not the least of which was gathering and leading those who would one day be known as the Salmük tribe. “Bashshar had decided when he became a man, he would travel the desert, circling the Great Mother before returning to his homeland in the east.”
Rasime’s eyes shone through her drunken haze as she took in Davud anew. Davud felt his heart skip—Rasime was a beautiful woman—but he was deep in the story now, and continued without pause.
“Bashshar first went south, traveling always by moonlight so that the twin goddesses might shine down upon him, and there he found the deepest and bluest lake in Iri’s Teeth. He swam to the very bottom, and there found a ruby. It gleamed like a drop of blood drawn from the first gods themselves. He continued west and found in a vale a staff of yew standing from the ground with berries on its head that did not poison, but heal. In the ruins of an ancient temple he found a turning gust of sand that never failed to stop, an efrit that had been left and forgotten since the great exodus. On he went, finding more wondrous treasures, a length of string that could cut wood, a stone that made the earth tremble, a flute that drew any animal he might name to kneel before him. Twelve treasures did he find, until at last he came near his homela
nd in the east once more.”
His gaze roamed the gathering, meeting every eye. They were caught now, entranced. Even Anila. Even Tayyar.
“There,” Davud went on, “walking across the desert beneath the glare of the sun—for he no longer had need to hide—he spied a woman in the distance. Her form wavered in the heat, and though he carried the greatest treasures in all the desert, he feared her. When the woman stepped beyond the mirage, however, he saw that she was beautiful, that she had only kindness in her eyes, and his fear vanished, but only for a moment, for in the next, she asked him, ‘What have you there?’
“Luckily Bashshar had put away many of the smaller treasures. The staff, however, he had to hand, so he showed it to her and offered her some of its berries. She ate them, and thanked him kindly. ‘There is a tribe of my people who might use such berries.’ She pointed along the path he’d taken. ‘In the black foothills. May we walk a while and bring them some?’
“Bashshar was entranced by this woman. She was tall, with green eyes and a thick plait of honey-blond hair that hung over one shoulder.” Davud saw many among the circle nod. They knew who the woman was, for they’d heard the story before, or one like it. “Bashshar said, ‘Of course I’ll accompany you.’ And together they walked, talking of a great many things, chief among them the sights Bashshar had seen on his trek around the desert. When they arrived at the tribe’s camp, the woman asked if he might leave the staff with them, only for a short while, and while they held it, would he walk farther, to another tribe that had asked for her help?
“Bashshar again agreed, and they trekked to another tribe hunting in the foothills of the mountains, then another at a salt flat with water as smooth as glass, and more beyond. They made love beneath the stars. They made poems the likes of which have never been heard again. They walked the full length of the desert once more, taking the reverse path, and all the while Bashshar became more and more enchanted with the goddess Nalamae, for he knew by now that it was her. Each time they arrived at a new tribe, he secretly hoped she would ask him to leave one of the grand wonders he’d found with yet another tribe, for he wanted nothing more than to remain with her for as long as she allowed.
“But when at last they’d returned to Bashshar’s own tribe, he was left with but one thing, a harp of gold that struck the purest of notes. She bade him take it back to his people. ‘There is disquiet in your tribe,’ she said, ‘and the harp will calm them.’ ‘But I would stay with you,’ Bashshar told her, for he knew she would not accompany him, and that if he left her side, he would never see her again. Nalamae kissed him and looked into his eyes and told him, ‘One day we will again stand face to face as we are now. This I promise.’
“And so it was that Bashshar returned to his tribe, heartbroken. It is said he lives in the Kholomundi Mountains still, playing his harp at the break of day and when the sun sets, and if you go there, you can hear it and feel his sorrow.”
Rasime looked at him, her face sublime in the firelight, thoughtful. “I asked for a tale of love, of romance.”
“It was not, perhaps, a tale of romance, but it was a tale of love. When I was first told this story, I wept. For Bashshar, certainly, but more so for Nalamae, for her love of the people of the desert, a love that saw her weaving her thread among them, drawing them closer that they might be one.”
Rasime studied his face, perhaps trying to absorb all that he’d said, and then she grabbed a hunk of hair at the back of his head and pulled him in for another kiss, a much longer one this time, more ardent. One that Davud returned. The entire gathering laughed, some whistling. Some time later, another story began, but Davud was so lost in Rasime’s kisses he couldn’t say when, or what the story was even about. Rasime raked her fingers through his hair, kissed his neck, placed more along his jaw and then licked his ear, her breath came hot and heavy. He was so lost in her he nearly missed Anila standing, taking Tayyar’s hand, heading off to one of the skiffs, where Tayyar set sail beneath crescent moons and took her on a romantic cruise through the darkening night.
Bakhi take her. She could lie with Tayyar if she wished.
Davud stood and held his hand out to Rasime. To his surprise, she took it, to more whistles from the circle, interrupting a new story that the fat man in the khalat had just begun. Davud took an unoccupied carpet and led Rasime away, far beyond the borders of the circled ships, and laid it down on the far side of a shallow dune. The two of them lay there, pulling the clothes from one another with increasing speed, pressing more kisses, both wet and warm. Rasime might be the captain of a ship, but she worked harder than any of the crew. Her body showed it. Her arms and legs were well defined, her stomach smooth. Davud had slept with few enough women, but there was something about being here in the desert, away from Sharakhai, away from the ceaseless gaze of the collegia scholars, that freed him.
That and he was good and drunk. A drunk the likes of which he’d never experienced before. He released himself to it, kissing her everywhere, moving slowly from her tight breasts to her stomach to her thighs. Then he moved between them, savoring the sounds of her rapid breaths, giving himself to the pain as she gripped his hair and held him in place while grinding her hips in a rhythm they shared.
Her breath caught once. Twice. Then she cried out into the night, pulling him tighter to her than she had before. They both heard whistles from the other side of the dune, men and women laughing. She and Davud laughed as well.
“A story of love, you said.”
She let out a biting laugh. “You call this love?” She rolled him over and sat across his hips, running her now-moist lips along his cock, slicking his skin. “This is nothing like love.” She leaned down to kiss him fully, deeply, slipping her hand between her legs to guide him inside her. She rode him like the swell of the sands, slowly at first but building like a storm. And then it was his turn to twist his hips, to grip the edges of the carpet, to cry out, more loudly than he’d meant to.
More laughing came, mostly from the women, and Davud felt his cheeks burn even as he held her hips and pulled her tighter against him. They lay there for a long while, silent, Davud not wanting to ruin this moment.
And soon they’d fallen asleep.
Davud felt a hand clamp over his mouth. He opened his eyes to see a dark form looming over him. He thought it was Tayyar at first, but the silhouette was too slight. He struggled, which only made the one above him clamp his mouth tighter.
“Be quiet, you fool!”
Breath of the desert, it was Anila. He relaxed, and she slowly pulled her hand from his mouth. He could see her finger over her lips, then she motioned him to follow.
Rasime still lay next to him, naked, but she snored softly, and did not move as he lifted her head and pulled his arm free. He stood, trying to pull his clothes on, but promptly fell over. The stars above swam. The horizon kept wanting to tip upward along the edges.
Anila waited, impatience written all over her posture, but when he finally finished dressing, she took his hand and held him close, as if the two of them were lovers walking over the dunes. He tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t allow it. “If you want to get away from here alive, Davud, hold me like the moon-eyed calf you are. Pretend I’m Rasime.”
He obeyed, if only to give himself time to regain his bearings. The four ships’ masts and rigging towered in the night, though their hulls and the celebration that had been held between them were largely hidden. Anila was taking them steadily toward the oasis. He had the impression she wanted to run there, but would not, for anyone might be watching from the darkness of the ships, or perhaps from the bushes along the water’s edge. Davud played his part, putting one arm around her shoulder, drawing her tight to him. He even tried to take her hand, to hold it like lovers might while they walked, but Anila slapped his hand away.
A bridge too far, then.
When they reached the edge of the oasis, Anila guided them
to the left. They curved around several turns in the small body of water, the ships coming in and out of view as the foliage blocked them. When they passed beyond a clutch of trees, however, all but the tops of the masts were lost from sight entirely.
Immediately, Anila grabbed Davud’s hand and sprinted across the sand.
“Where are we going?” he rasped.
She didn’t answer, but he soon found out. In a trough of rocky ground, nearly hidden from view, was a skiff, the one she and Tayyar had taken for their midnight sail.
“But where . . .”
His words trailed off, for just then he saw the body lying near the water. Davud walked toward it as Anila headed for the skiff. It was Tayyar, naked, lying on a section of matted grass. The striped blanket beneath him was stained dark, a great, bloody rose blooming around his head. Davud bent closer, sickened but too curious to just leave. Tayyar’s skull was a matted mess of blood and hair. Bone stuck out in several places. A stone the size of a melon lay nearby, dark along one side, making it look like a third crescent moon fallen from the sky.
“Hurry, Davud!”
“How many times did you strike him?”
“Enough to make him stop moving. Now help me move this skiff or they’re going to do the same to us!”
Davud turned away to find Anila muscling the skiff slowly toward the stony ridge. He ran to the opposite side and helped to push it, and soon they were nearing open sand. Davud studied the darkness, wondering who might be watching, certain someone nearby would sound the alarm, and dozens would wake. And then the chase would be on. They’d be brought back and hung from the yardarms. Or they’d be dragged behind the ships—sand whipped, they called it—until clothes, then skin, then muscle was slowly stripped from their bodies.
With Blood Upon the Sand Page 50