“They want it to be true,” Habibullah replied. “They’re sick of Megelin. He’s a weakling tyrant who spawns disasters. But they’re equally sick of being preached at. They’re hungry for a savior. They are making themselves one out of wishful thinking. The King Without a Throne. The strongman who will bring peace and unity. They forget the facts of the man that was.”
Yasmid knew that. She did not like it.
She disliked its religious implications. She disliked its social implications. Selfishly, she disliked it because it suggested that she could lose her privileged life.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to do anything about it. I don’t want to be seen as concerned about it. Let the fever run its course.”
Habibullah was astonished. “But…”
“We’re going to try a new strategy, old friend. This time, instead of roaring around killing people and screaming about God, we’re just going to ignore it. We’ll leave the world alone so long as the world extends us the same courtesy.”
She watched the old soldier begin to marshal his arguments, then lay them down again before he spoke.
He was tired of the struggle, too.
She asked, “Is it time to go see my father?”
“Yes. Elwas wants us to dine with him and the foreigner.” His disapproval of that Unbeliever never relented.
“Then let us tend to our garden.”
Habibullah frowned, puzzled.
“A sutra from the Book of Reconciliation.” Which was not a book at all but a long letter El Murid had written to persecuted converts when he was still young and visionary. It was included in the greater collection of the Disciple’s Inspired Writings-cynically assembled by Yasmid to help guide and shape the Faith.
“Oh. Yes. Where he tells us to endure our trials. If we live our lives righteously and tend to our gardens, God will tend to us.”
“Very good.”
“My father was there, in that camp, when he wrote that letter.”
Tangled lives, Yasmid thought, with some entanglements going back decades and generations.
She had her women ready her for the public passage across the mile to her father’s tent. Though the hard line imams had been tamed for now she did not want to provoke them. Publicly, she would conform to the standards expected of an important woman.
Those were the unwritten terms of a tacit truce.
It was another in a long parade of fine days. The sky was a brighter blue than in most years. There were clouds up there, stately cumulus caravels like immense, gnarly snowballs edged with silver, numerous enough to be worthy of note. They were uncommon in most summers.
The fakir from Matayanga claimed that the unusual and favorable weather was a consequence of the great war between his homeland and Shinsan.
Yasmid cared only that the weather brought more moisture than usual.
“It’s almost cool today.”
Habibullah misinterpreted. “Getting cold feet?”
“No. I started thinking about Haroun.”
Habibullah sighed.
“I’m sorry. The Evil One has that hold on me. I can’t get the man out of my head.” She took four steps. “I never could.” Several more steps. “He would be away for years. And I would spend most of that time watching the door, waiting for him to come through.” She managed another ten steps. “Habibullah, I could have come home any time I wanted. There was no one to stop me. There was just one old woman with me. But I stayed and watched the door.”
Habibullah faced the mountains behind them. He thought he might shed a tear. He did not want his goddess to see that.
As they approached El Murid’s tent Yasmid halted yet again. “I’m watching the door again. God, have mercy on your weak child.”
“He’s dead, Yasmid. Accept that. The rumors all result from one fevered imagination.”
“I can’t accept that.”
…
Elwas al-Souki met the Lady Yasmid at the entrance to the Disciple’s tent-that being a sprawl of canvas and poles covering several acres.
El Murid had a philosophical resistance to residing in structures built of timber or stone. He would live in tents whenever he could.
This sprawl was a ghost of the canvas palaces he had occupied in his glory days.
Al-Souki said, “Lady, you are punctual. Sadly, we have not been your equal. We have run late all day, getting farther behind by the hour.”
“What are you up to, Elwas?”
The man did not dissemble. “I hoped to show you how your father is progressing while we wait.”
“Why?” She did not want to be here. Whatever prolonged her torment was sure to irk her.
“Because you need to know. Because your wretch of a father is also the Disciple, a shining star to millions. You need to see what we’ve done to resurrect the visionary from the ashes of the man.”
Habibullah averred, “That’s interesting talk, Elwas. Now make it mean something.”
Elwas flashed a happy face and beckoned them to follow.
They reached an open area fifty feet by a hundred with the canvas twenty feet above, supported by an orchard of poles. There were few furnishings. The floor was sawdust and wood chips mixed with strained sand and shredded clay in a groomed flat, soft surface. Thin, creamy light coming through the canvas revealed several men engaged in calisthenics. Swami Phogedatvitsu and his smarmy interpreter walked around them. The swami occasionally swatted one with a switch. No one wore anything but a loincloth. None of those bodies were worthy of flaunting.
Yasmid did not recognize her father.
When Habibullah brought her home-subjective ages ago-Micah al Rhami had been a fat slug, half blind, barely aware that he was alive. His caretakers kept him fat, drugged, and out of sight so he would not interfere in what they did in his name.
Most of those parasites abided with the Evil One now. The Invincibles and Harish had helped clean them out.
“Lady? Are you all right?” Elwas asked. He sounded genuinely concerned.
“I’m fine. I was remembering my return from exile, when I first saw what had become of my father. It was beyond belief.”
“I have heard tell.”
Yasmid glanced his way, unhappy. He was not feeling generous toward her, perhaps because of her profound disgust. That never won favor among men who considered her father the Right Hand of God, however far he had fallen.
Elwas told her, “He is free of the poppy. Heavy exercise is one of Swami Phogedatvitsu’s sharpest tools.”
“Wouldn’t that just aggravate his pain?”
“That is emotion expressed as pain, not actual pain. He feels the loss of your mother physically instead of emotionally.”
Yasmid nodded. An odd way of thinking but it did sound plausible.
“The swami also teaches skills for managing both the need for the poppy and the pain that excuses the need.”
Yasmid sucked in a deep breath, released it in a long sigh. Her father had suffered chronic pain forever. He had sustained severe injuries during his early ministry. Some never healed right. The pain, and the opium he used to control it, clouded his judgment later. Countless needless deaths resulted.
“I do hope that he conquers the poppy, Elwas. I pray for that regularly. But he has beaten it before, only to backslide when life disappointed him.”
“This time will be different. I hope you will let the swami manage your father’s health permanently.”
Habibullah snorted in disdain but did control his tongue.
Yasmid understood. It would be outrageous to hand the Disciple’s health and spiritual well-being over to a heathen mystic. The most coveted treasure a villain could win would be control of the Disciple’s person.
Elwas bin Farout al-Souki, though young, was cunning and had grown up in circumstances that made reading people a useful survival skill. “Lady, I have no interest in controlling your father. I am involved because my other duties make slight claim upon my time. We have no wars. We have no threats of war. Only a few young, green men want to train for the next war.”