The Diviner (28 page)

Quite deliberately, Alessid took his time. He washed his hands and face, donned a fresh robe, and told his eldest daughter that he might or might not be back for the noon meal. Ra'abi, twelve years old and in charge of her sisters when her mother was otherwise busy, looked up at him through long black lashes.

“Will you come hear our lessons? Jemilha and I have learned a new song.”

“I wish very much to hear it, but I cannot promise to return in time. Why don't you sing it for Grandfather Razhid?”

“Because we want to sing for
you
!”

Alessid cleared his throat. Ra'abi was the most imperious of his girls, fretful for the day when she would rule her own tent. “I will try,” he said. “Ayia, I cannot keep Abb Shagara waiting.”

“You've washed and dressed, and that takes time, so you can't be in that much of a hurry—”

“Ra'abi, enough.”

He was the only one who could quell her. She bent her head submissively—though her small fists clenched at her sides. “Yes, Ab'ya.”

Alessid walked with Jefar through the encampment. Since last night, when Abb Harirri and Abb Azwadh had arrived with a dozen each of their strongest young men, the usual calm efficiency of the Shagara had been disturbed. Not by much; nothing much ever agitated the composure of these people, a thing Alessid found comforting. Perhaps it was the timelessness of the desert wastes around them that produced such peace. Or perhaps the word was
balance
—between the eternal dry wilderness and the undying hidden spring, between the winds that in winter lashed storms of cold rain and in summer stinging sand. This balance was not the precarious one he would have imagined. There was a space in which the Shagara and other wandering tribes existed, a space as unchanging as the land. They knew its dimensions, its dangers, every plant that could heal or kill, all the signs and signals of scents on the wind and colors in the evening sky. They altered nothing about its qualities and rhythms, knowing how to live with it and within it. And, Alessid reflected, when one did not worry about having to change the land every year to grow crops, and when one knew precisely what must be done to survive and even to thrive, the orderly round of life took on a tranquility of purpose. It was not a gentle serenity—life here was harsh and demanding—but the Shagara did not contend with the land. They were part of it, and to battle against it would be like battling themselves.

But the presence of Abb Harirri and Abb Azwadh had caused a stir. Alessid knew from the rumors brought to him by his wife that there was a battle coming, and as he entered Abb Shagara's tent and bowed, he hid his eagerness for the day.

Abb Harirri was the father of Mirzah's father Razhid; Abb Azwadh was the great-uncle of Alessid's son Addad's wife. Both men were in their vigorous sixties, lean and tough, their full beards only slightly grayed. They were men accustomed to command, not entreaty. Alessid greeted them as the kinsmen they were to him, and at Abb Shagara's gesture sat on a pile of carpets. He was never remiss in his respects toward the man; besides, he knew he could afford to be generous. He was well aware why the Harirri and Azwadh Fathers were here.

Young Jefar poured qawah for them all, handed round a small silver plate of delicacies, and retired to a corner of the tent. Although Abb Shagara's servitor was supposed to become invisible, with downcast eyes and deaf ears, Jefar was as alert as a stallion scenting new mares.

“Your wife is well, and all your children?” Abb Harirri asked politely.

“I thank you, yes,” Alessid replied. “We hope for a son next year, to name Razhid for his grandfather.” He turned to Abb Azwadh. “I hope that my son Addad causes happiness in the tent of the beauteous Black Rose.”

“Ka'arli is with child, which is a great happiness for us all,” Abb Azwadh said, but his smile was fleeting. He had more important matters on his mind.

Alessid, on the other hand, was completely delighted by the news. He showed it only with a slow nod, for it would be unseemly to gloat over this new link to the mighty Azwadh.

“And your horses?” Abb Azwadh went on. “All goes well with them?”

It was the next round in the usual courtesies—but Alessid knew this was not mere civility but the beginning of serious discussion. “Forty-two foals this year,” he reported, “and thirty-eight now in training.”

“And those fully educated but not yet claimed?”

“Twenty-six.” There were in fact twenty-seven, but one of them was already privately bespoken by Jefar's father. From the corner of his eye he saw the boy's head jerk up, a blaze of joyous speculation in his dark eyes. An instant later he had resumed his self-effacing stance. Alessid was not surprised by his insight; Jefar was a clever, likable youth, and it was a pity Ra'abi was as yet too young to be considering him as a husband.

“Ayia,” sighed Abb Harirri, “let us pace no more around the water hole, but slake our thirst. Alessid, the Harirri and the Azwadh would like to purchase as many horses as you can spare. You know that the tribes have moved to certain lands each season since time began. The Harirri winter lands are within two days of Hazganni. Closer than we are comfortable with, but there it is. Yet Sheyqir Za'aid al-Ammarizzad contends that we are too near, and—”

“There have been raids, and deaths,” interrupted Abb Azwadh. “Our own winter camp is much farther from Hazganni, and yet our tents too have been burned and our people killed.” He paused, and his mouth vanished between his beard and mustache as he bit both lips hard together.

“There will be vengeance, Abb Azwadh.” Alessid spoke quietly.

“This is why we need your horses,” said Abb Harirri. “Riders on the swiftest of them can stand guard, and come to warn us of impending raids. When we move camp, they can range out to patrol the trails ahead, and—”

“—and keep those cursed Qoundi Ammar from attacking our wagons!” Abb Azwadh exclaimed. “This happened to the Tallib while traveling to their winter camp—seventeen killed, five wagons destroyed—”

“Your son and his wife are safe, Alessid,” Abb Harirri interposed smoothly. “In fact, I am told that Kammil led a group of young men on horseback to drive the raiders off.”

Alessid nodded his gratitude for the reassurance, but what he was thinking was that Kammil had done exactly what Alessid needed him to do, as if they'd planned it together. A clever boy. “The raiders wanted to stop the Tallib where they were, so that they would go no farther?”

“That is the opinion of Abb Tallib. Otherwise, everyone would have been killed. Being the stubborn man he is, he buried his dead and continued on. But there have been no more raids. Kammil organized twenty young men of the tribe as sentries—”

“—which is where we got the idea to do the same,” finished Abb Azwadh.

Better and better,
thought Alessid, and sipped qawah.

Abb Shagara then spoke for the first time since Alessid had entered his tent. “I have told my fellow Fathers that as far as I am concerned, they may have these horses—and hazziri to go with them. We Shagara live far from any contact with the Qoundi Ammar. But just as we gave hazziri to the people along the coast to aid their fight against the northern barbarians long ago, so we must provide horses to the Harirri and Azwadh.”

Careful to keep his voice very soft, Alessid asked, “And allow them to do our fighting for us against Sheyqir Za'aid?”

Abb Shagara stiffened.

“We can do more than post sentries to warn of attack.”

“Ayia?” Abb Harirri leaned forward on his pile of carpets. “More?”

“Yes. More and better. We can do better than merely defending our people and lands.”

Abb Azwadh set down his qawah and clenched both hands into fists.

Alessid had known since last night that the time was now. He knew what he would say and how he would say it—but to have the moment fluttering in his palm like a captured bird caused his heart to race and his breath to quicken. He paused, calmed himself, and began to speak.

“For too long this seventeenth son of Sheyqa Nizzira has lolled in Hazganni, claiming to rule while in truth he tyrannizes. He has taken village after village, town after town, with all their fields and pastures and riches, and nothing is ever enough. He demands taxes, with which he decorates more palaces in more gold and gems. Now he encroaches on the desert—not because he knows how to live here, or because his limited mind perceives anything of value here, but because the Harirri and the Azwadh and the Tabbor and the Tariq and the Tallib and the Shagara do not pay his taxes and bend their heads in the dust to him. I say that we of the Za'aba Izim never will pay either money or respect. I say his soldiers have taken for him all they are going to take. And I say further that it is time to take back what is ours.”

He had them now, and he knew it. The idea that had come to him when he was but fourteen years old, during the long ride with Fadhil to the Shagara camp, had finally been expressed. It rested contented in his palm now, wings folded, and even sang to him, and he begged Acuyib for the words that would make its music sweet and powerful in the ears of these powerful men.

He looked at their eyes, and saw resistance only in the darkly narrowed gaze of Abb Shagara. But the others—they were hearing the song. And so he risked the other idea, an even sweeter one.

“And when I say ‘ours,' I mean all the people of this region.” Alessid saw their brows arch. They were not quite ready for this, not yet, but the timing was too propitious. “Abb Azwadh, your brother lives on the coast, watching over your trade. His wife comes from Hazganni. Abb Harirri, your mother's brother took a wife from Beit Za'ara, and one of their sons lives in Bayyid Qarhia. I was born in Sihabbah, where people still remember my family. We all have kin and friends in all parts of this land. They are like streams of blood that flow among all the villages and towns and camps. Sheyqir Za'aid has polluted many of these streams and filled many others in with sand. I say that it is time to purify.”

Jefar had completely forgotten the restraint imposed by service to Abb Shagara. He was staring at Alessid with fire in his eyes and in his cheeks, and not even a scathing glance from his uncle could quench him.

“When I was a young boy,” he went on, “I had an interest in growing things. I collected plants from the wide corners of this land, watching as they grew, discovering their properties. A thing I noticed is that it took very little effort to make them thrive. They knew their native soil—”

“Your father, I am told,” observed Abb Harirri, “planted whole forests.”

Alessid nodded, and for once in his life was pleased to acknowledge the man who had sired him. “He did, and it was wisely done. And it proves my point. Trees brought from Sihabbah grew happily in many places where such trees had not been known before . . . until the al-Ammarizzad destroyed them. They and their kind are
not
in their native soil. I say it is time to uproot them. And further, I say it is time to unite all tribes in a single purpose: the obliteration of the al-Ammarizzad from our country.”

“For
your
vengeance,” snapped Abb Shagara, no longer bothering to hide his scorn. “What was done to your family—”

“—was done by apostate Shagara,” Alessid reminded him. “And yet—what drove them to it? They thought that by murdering the al-Ma'aliq, Sheyqir Za'aid would leave off his planned attack. They were wrong. It was thought that with control of Hazganni and a few other towns, Sheyqir Za'aid would leave off his conquests. This also was wrong. It has taken him nineteen years, but now he threatens even the desert. Anyone who thinks that the al-Ammarizzad will stop after a few tents and wagons have burned will be not just wrong, but dead.”

Abb Azwadh stroked his gray-streaked beard. “Abb Shagara has mentioned that when the northern barbarians invaded a hundred and fifty years ago, the Shagara made hazziri for those who fought. Would it be possible—?”

“With respect,” Alessid said, “it is not only hazziri we require. We must fight, and there is only one way to do it.”

“On
their
terms—on horseback!” exclaimed Jefar from his corner.

“Out!” snarled his uncle. The boy fled the tent, and Abb Shagara continued, “What you are saying is abominable! I am as proud of the Shagara horses as any of us, and I know of at least a dozen hazziri that will protect in battle—but what you propose is—”

“—to cast out the usurper,” Alessid interrupted, “and make of this land one nation, so no one can ever again do to us what the northern
or
the eastern barbarians have done.”

“It would take time to organize a fighting force,” mused Abb Harirri.

“Only as long as it takes for your young men to come here and be instructed.” Alessid relished the way they all stared at him. “Come. I will show you.”

He was further impressed by Jefar when he discovered that the boy had summoned as many members of the cavalry as he could find. Thirty-eight were already saddling their horses, and twenty-six more were hurrying to do the same. Jefar had taken it on himself to saddle Alessid's own Qishtan, only son of his much-mourned Zaqia. Alessid mounted, nodded his thanks to the boy, and gathered his troops. Desperately excited, ferociously proud that now the long, strict secrecy was ending, they responded with gratitude to his orders.

First, the smartly executed exercises in controlling their horses to behave as a single unit. Then the individual skills, showing the agility of horse and rider—and what a pair of hooves could do when they lashed out at an enemy, represented by bales of fodder. Finally, twenty men staged an assault against forty-four, and when the dust settled it was seen to be a victory for the smaller group.