by Melanie Rawn
Countess Nadaline do’Joharra had resisted Tza’ab Rih since the first Riders on the Golden Wind had destroyed her father and the father of her child. Barricaded in her mountain fortress with those who remained of her father’s warriors—added to those who rallied to her from Qaysh, Granidiya, and Ibrayanza, the conquered lands—she had spent these years raising her son and keeping mostly to herself. Many years later, however, with the boy nearly a man and by all reports an accomplished youth beloved of his people, she had become an irritant. And Alessid was determined to take Joharra once and for all.
“How could we have let it come to this?” Mairid asked on the day word came that the army of Joharra had retaken five important villages from the Tza’ab. “Why wasn’t she killed years ago, and her son with her?”
Alessid shrugged, and resettled himself on carpets in his garden tent. “I had other things to do.”
“Ab’ya, it’s time to give our attention to Joharra,” she replied firmly. “This Countess Nadaline must be dealt with. And especially her son—for he can claim both Joharra and Qaysh.”
“So your sister Ra’abi has been complaining to you, has she?”
“Having heard nothing from you on the subject, naturally the Queen of Qaysh is concerned.” Brisk and efficient, she proceeded to detail options. As Alessid listened, he congratulated himself on choosing her to rule when he was dead. She knew what she wanted and how to plan most effectively to get it; tenacity was an excellent trait in a ruler. In the years since her marriage to Jefar she had borne two daughters and three sons, one of whom might be Haddiyat. The years had proven that all her sisters had birthed gifted Shagara males. It was very likely Mairid had done the same. But they would have to wait a while to find out—likely until after Alessid was dead.
But he was not dead yet. And Mairid was not so clever as she thought she was. He could still teach her a thing or two.
“All very interesting,” he interrupted suddenly, winning a frown from her lovely brow. “But you forget an asset we have which the Joharrans do not.”
“I’ve already described a plan for using hazziri—”
“I am thinking of something more subtle than magic.”
“Which is?”
To her great and obvious frustration, he only smiled.
Later, alone with his thoughts in his maqtabba, he wrote a private letter to his cousin Sheyqa Kerrima of Rimmal Madar—who had succeeded to her mother Sayyida’s Moonrise Throne earlier this year. What he proposed was not a thing Mairid would have considered. Nor Ra’abi, nor even her husband Zaqir, Kerrima’s brother. But Alessid had thought of it, and that was why he ruled an Empire.
A few months after the delivery of the letter, Alessid had his reply. Countess Nadaline do’Joharra was dead, her son in exile, and all of Joharra firmly in the possession of Alessid’s granddaughter Za’avedra the Younger, eldest child of Queen Za’avedra of Ibrayanza. Though it should have been one of Ra’abi’s daughters, the only one available was but six years old. Thus it was that Joharra finally came into the Empire of Tza’ab Rih.
A little while thereafter, Alessid received in secret a strange and grim young tribesman from the east. He did not bow to the al-Ma’aliq, but the al-Ma’aliq didn’t much mind. Sheyqa Mairid did mind; she frowned but said nothing.
“You allowed the son to escape,” Alessid said.
“No, we did not, for the son was not in Joharra. Had he been, he would not have escaped.”
“Nonetheless, Ra’amon do’Joharra yet lives.” Alessid paused, relishing the moment. “As my father yet lived.”
The Geysh Dushann tensed visibly, but only for an instant. “It was Acuyib’s Will.”
“Ayia?”
Reluctantly, his dark skin even darker with the rush of blood to his face, the Geysh Dushann replied, “As our kinswoman the great and noble Sheyqa Kerrima has said it, Azzad al-Ma’aliq lived, by Acuyib’s Grace, that in time our enmity might be abolished in this favor to you.”
Indignant, Mairid broke in, “Is that what she called it? A ‘favor’?”
There was an impression of grinding teeth; the man was yet very young. “Reparation, then, for the attempts on your father’s life.”
Alessid nodded. “It is enough. Or, rather, it is not enough, but it will do. You and your tribe are no longer my enemies. I will so inform the Shagara, so that for the first time in almost seventy years your people may go to them for healing.”
The Geysh Dushann was silent for a moment, and Alessid thought he might have stumbled upon a little wisdom. But then he burst out, “Which will not bring back my grandfather, or my father’s brother, or any of those who died in those years from the enmity of the Shagara and the lack of that healing.”
“As it will not bring back my father, my mother, my five brothers and two sisters,” Alessid retorted. “We make our bargains based on the past, but we construct them so that the future will be better—or so we may hope.” This was more for Mairid’s benefit than that of the Geysh Dushann, but Alessid did not glance at his daughter to make sure she got the point. Eyeing the young man coldly, he commanded, “Declare to me, Ammarad.”
The words blistered the proud lips speaking them, but they were said. “You and your tribe are no longer our enemies.”
“Nor is the Empire of Tza’ab Rih.”
More acid, but spewed out more swiftly so as to be rid of it. “Nor is the Empire of Tza’ab Rih.” And he ended the oath by touching first his brow and then his heart.
Satisfied, Alessid asked, “So. How was it accomplished?”
For the first time, the Geysh Dushann looked smug and confident in what Alessid deduced must be the way of his kind. But his voice was bland as he remarked, “There is a family of artisans who make tiles. Very beautiful tiles. When these Grijalva came to redecorate the lady’s bath, they were given . . . assistance. The tiles of a bath can be very slippery, and the waters thereupon . . .” He arched his brows delicately. “. . .treacherous in other ways.”
“I trust no one else will experience the same accident?” Meaning, of course, that it should never be discovered as anything other than an accident.
“No one, al-Ma’aliq.”
Alessid nodded and dismissed the assassin. Alone once more with his daughter, he said, “So you see, we did not require Shagara magic after all.”
“Ayia,” she sighed, removing the ornamental coronet that invariably gave her a headache, “but any contact with the Geysh Dushann is dangerous.”
“As it happens, I agree. But this was the simplest way, and it solved two problems. I wish to leave you an empire as free of the past as I can make it.”
“Yet the bargains we make based on the past—Grandsire Azzad’s, yours, mine—are the foundations of what we do in the future. So there is no real freedom from the past, is there? Countess Nadaline is dead, the enmity of the Geysh Dushann is canceled, but—” She sat straighter, gaze narrowing. “The boy. Nothing was said of where he was, only of where he was not.”
“So you caught that, too. Still . . . how much of a future can he possibly have?”
“None, if he intrudes upon my notice.”
Alessid smiled to himself. “Go now, and say nothing of this. You will rule after me, so it was necessary for you to know the truth of what happened to Countess Nadaline. But to everyone else it must be a fortuitous accident.”
When she was gone, he took out paper and pen to write another letter to his cousin Sheyqa Kerrima. He would send it with a fine young gelding and a gorgeous leather saddle from Sihabbah, jingling with golden Shagara hazziri.
Not the blooded kind, of course. Not the kind that really worked. One never knew when the past, in the form of al-Ammarizzad greed, might intrude once more upon his notice.
Leyliah Shagara was as beautiful in her old age as she had been when a girl. At eighty-six, her skin was a marvel of dusk-gold softness, and her hair was pure silver without a hint of yellowing, and her lustrous dark eyes saw as clear and straight as ever. She h
ad outlived her husband, two Haddiyat sons, three daughters, six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and all the friends of her youth. She was the only one left besides Alessid who personally remembered Azzad al-Ma’aliq—one of the four men she had loved and the one she had mourned longest, for he had been the first to die. But in Alessid’s opinion, Razhid and Fadhil and Abb Akkil were worthier of her sorrow than Azzad.
It was Leyliah, however, who pointed out what should have been obvious to him: that Mairid’s son Qamar, even in childhood, was Azzad all over again. At first Alessid rejected the notion. How could he love so thoroughly anyone who was so thoroughly a copy of his father? But when he looked with his heart, he saw the charm, the grace, the cheerful mischief, the enchantment of presence and smile. It was so easy to see Azzad as he must have been in boyhood, with his big dark eyes and laughing face and the ability to wheedle anything he liked out of anyone he pleased. Yet even knowing this, fully aware that he was being wheedled, Alessid indulged the boy. The love between them had nothing to do with favors asked or bestowed. Qamar loved him, even on the rare occasions when Alessid said No.
All the grandchildren spent at least a year living with the Shagara. Those who also had ties to the other tribes of the Za’aba Izim lived with them for a time as well, to affix the relationship as well as to teach the younglings about their heritage in the desert. The year Qamar spent with the Shagara was the loneliest of Alessid’s long life.
The boy returned much taller but no more obedient than when he had left. Leyliah, in whose tent he had lived, reported him hopeless at every craft but one: that of horses. Alessid shrugged and smiled, and gave Qamar a splendid colt to train as his own. The horse loved him as devotedly as everyone else—to the extent of escaping his grooms and mounting the stairs to Qamar’s chambers one evening when lessons had kept the boy from him for two whole days.
Thereafter, every few days Qamar spent the night sleeping in Shayir’s stall. And every so often, Alessid joined him. He refused to concede to Mirzah that a bed of straw and blankets was not as beneficial to his aging bones as a feather mattress and silken quilts; indeed, he refused to acknowledge his years and did not even feel them when he was with Qamar.
They talked, and read books aloud by lamplight, and curried Shayir until he shone like golden fire. And then Qamar would sprawl on the straw, and Alessid would curl next to him and watch him sleep until sleep overcame him, too. He had never been so perfectly happy in all his life.
But when Leyliah had returned from the Shagara camp with Qamar, she had also brought words of warning. The Abb Shagara who had deplored Alessid’s use of magic in war was long dead, as was his successor, but the new one thought like the old—and the cancellation of enmity between the Shagara and the Geysh Dushann, done without even consulting Abb Shagara, turned the leader’s thoughts in grim directions. Leyliah had explained the necessity and the wisdom of it: that now no one in Tza’ab Rih need fear the assassins, that they had made recompense for the attacks against the al-Ma’aliq, that Joharra was now ruled by a Queen whose mother was a Shagara.
Abb Shagara had not been impressed.
“But neither does he encourage open rebellion,” Leyliah concluded. “Though I must caution you, Alessid, that I believe this is more due to respect for my age than for your power. It is not right, but it is true.”
“Then you shall have to live forever, ayia?” Alessid answered smiling, and went off to ride with his grandson.
Joharra did not stay quiet for long. Za’avedra the Younger ruled the land as her mother ruled Ibrayanza: lightly, unobtrusively. The people kept their homes, their farms, their shops, and their religion. But they also kept their pride alive, that they alone had resisted the Riders on the Golden Wind for so long. And they especially kept their hopes of return to independence, personified in the young man who, though bastard, could lay claim to two thrones.
Ra’amon do’Joharra was living in Cazdeyya, a mountainous land north of Joharra across the marshy river valley claimed by a family called do’Barradda. Alessid had no use for either piece of territory. He knew how far his influence could spread. He had established his borders and set up garrisons to guard them. Keeping the peace certainly gave his warriors enough to do.
Peace was the last thing on the minds of the Joharrans who attacked their own city in the autumn of 683. Ra’amon was not with them. Indeed, he later claimed he had no knowledge of what they did in his name. This was likely, as Cazdeyya was often isolated from the rest of the world by heavy winter snow and the occasional earthquake that rendered the roads impassable. Whether Ra’amon knew of it or not, however, the attack progressed—and succeeded. Queen Za’avedra, her husband, and their three-year-old son were captured and put to the sword. Joharra was no longer of the Empire of Tza’ab Rih.
This state lasted exactly as long as it took for the combined armies of Qaysh and Ibrayanza to reach Joharra. The siege and battles that ensued raped the surrounding countryside and nearly destroyed the city. But Joharra was at length retaken, and Alessid himself rode into its capital with its new Queen at his side: Za’avedra the Younger’s sister, Dabirra. Eighteen years old, mother of two sons, Dabirra was determined not to make any of the mistakes she perceived her sister had made. It was only by direct order that she was restrained from reviving an ancient custom of the Hrummans who had once ruled this land: the taking of one life in every ten as punishment for a nation’s crimes. Everyone knew who had given the command for mercy, and gratitude for Mairid’s leniency was matched by real fear of Dabirra’s wrath.
Alessid had come to Joharra with Mairid, Jefar, and three of their children. It was a pretty point of precedence, that entry into the city—Dabirra, after all, was now a Queen, but Mairid was the heir to the Empire. She let her cousin have her splendid day, following along last of all. For, as Mairid knew full well, once Dabirra and her husband and sons had passed beneath the war-shattered stone gates, all attention was on their future Empress. Alessid missed the spectacle, having ridden in front with Dabirra, but could imagine it. Beautiful Mairid, dignified gray-bearded Jefar; Rihana, sixteen and the image of her grandmother Mirzah at that age; Akkar, a scholarly fifteen and Mirzah’s favorite; and nine-year-old Qamar, gleefully certain that all this commotion was for him and him alone.
“After all,” he said to Alessid that evening, “was I not the very last one they saw? That makes me the one they waited all that while to see!” When Alessid laughed, stinging his grandson’s pride, the boy sulked. “Ayia, you just wait! When I’m bigger, I’ll make hazziri enough to show them all!”
And for the first time a chill settled on Alessid’s heart when he looked at Qamar, because for the first time he began to understand the emotion that had crushed Mirzah’s happiness.
Joharra soon settled under the iron grasp of Queen Dabirra and her husband. But she bore no more children, and her two sons were both Haddiyat. When she died young, with no female heir, Alessid consulted Mairid regarding what was to be done.
Her answer was simple: give the people of Joharra what they wanted.
Her father stared at her. She laughed lightly and leaned over his worktable to tweak his white beard.
“How often have you seen Rihana these last few years? Not often. She fell in love when we first visited, Ab’ya.”
“With a barbarian?”
“With Joharra. She will have it on any terms she can get. And I am of a mind to propose certain terms to her . . . and to Ra’amon do’Joharra. I think they will both agree.”
Had he grown stupid in his old age? He understood none of this—most especially not the love of a half-Shagara girl for the mountains and forests and river valleys of a foreign country. An idea returned to him that in the last years he had been too busy to pursue: the relationship of people and place. Rihana belonged to Joharra, it seemed, through a process Alessid could not comprehend. Had her ancestors breathed its air? Had its water soothed their thirst? Had its soil yielded food for their tables?
He
realized then that although he had lived with the Shagara for many years, had married a Shagara girl, and his dearest intimates were almost exclusively Shagara, he had never felt himself one of them. He had never really felt at home in the desert. He did not belong to that land, any more than it truly belonged to him. Was there too much of his mother in him, too much of Hazganni and Sihabbah—or, grim to consider, too much of his father and Rimmal Madar?
He did not understand it. Neither did he understand why Rihana agreed at once to marry a man she had never set eyes on for the sake of a land she had desired since first setting eyes on it. An emissary was sent to Cazdeyya, and Rihana moped and fretted for months before the reply returned. As preparations proceeded for this marriage Alessid would never comprehend, his granddaughter spent most of her time taking lessons from Raffiq Murah in how to speak her future husband’s ugly language.
At seventeen years old, Qamar—who of course knew everything about everything—thought his sister a fool, and said so. His mother advised him to close his mouth and give thanks that not only had the matter been arranged to the satisfaction of all, but that Acuyib in His Wisdom had seen fit to move Ra’amon do’Joharra not only to change his name but his faith. He was as eager to return home to Joharra as Rihana was to make Joharra her home.
Alessid foresaw dreadful contention between them, despite the compromises each had willingly made for the sake of ambition. On the day Rihana departed for her new country and her new husband, he gave her a sealed letter, addressed to them both, to be opened the morning after the wedding. The contents were simple: a solemn reminder that peace and prosperity would come to Joharra not because of his name or her power but through a wise use of both. He urged the pair to let their mutual love of their land bind them to its service and recall always that their children would belong to Joharra and Tza’ab Rih in equal measure.
He did not write the words himself. In the last year or so, his hands had begun to stiffen and curl at the joints. Even lacking a single drop of Shagara blood in his veins, his fingers were as crooked as those of a rapidly aging Haddiyat. It was Qamar’s slim, supple fingers that had written the letter. The boy added a touch of artistry to the solemn words, drawing talishann at each corner of the page, familiar to all who had ever bought a Shagara charm as a wedding gift: happiness, fertility, love, fidelity.