“I’m sure she’ll share her secret, to please you.” He grinned. “Surely you’ve noticed, al-Gallidh, that you’ve made a conquest?”
“And it took nothing more than my books, whereas in years past it needed music, recitations of poetry, languishing glances, and an expedient gift of jewelry.” He sighed dramatically, dark eyes dancing. “If I’d known in my youth that it was so easy, I would have canceled my elocution lessons—and my account at the gem cutter’s.”
Azzad laughed and drank more qawah, and they settled to business again. Fields, orchards, horses, donkeys, timber, mining, fishing, trapping—all the varied enterprises of the al-Gallidh estates that Azzad had been managing were discussed in detail. Bazir declared himself satisfied—and then brought up a different subject entirely.
“Azzad, how old are you now?”
“Twenty-four this summer.”
“Not so great an age, to one of my years,” al-Gallidh sighed. “But to you, it must seem rather advanced.”
“Not at all.” He had no idea where this conversation might be going. “I believe a man grows wiser as he grows older—for in my former home, those who were unwise did not live long enough grow old.”
“What contributes to this wisdom, do you think?”
“Attention to work and responsibility, of course.” Azzad thought for a minute. “Learning from friends and superiors. Studying as his interests take him.”
“Ayia, I quite agree. But you have forgotten marriage to a clever woman.”
“I—I have no opinion on the subject, al-Gallidh.” He could now see the destination of this chat, and did not much like the scenery.
Bazir continued with exquisite casualness, “My own opinion is that a man should marry when he is old enough to have established himself in his work but young enough to need a woman’s brain to help him, so that he is grateful for her presence as well as her person.”
Azzad took a deep breath. “Is it your wish, al-Gallidh, that I look for a wife?”
“By Acuyib’s Glory, no!” He laughed, as if at some private joke.
Confused by the change in direction, Azzad frowned. “If not, then—”
“Have you no wish for a house of your own?”
He thought of Beit Ma’aliq, to which no other home could compare—and wondered which of Nizzira’s progeny lived in it now. If, indeed, it had been rebuilt at all, or still remained as a burned scar in the city. “No, al-Gallidh. I am content.”
“But I am not. It is therefore my intention that you shall live from now on in my house in Sihabbah.”
“Al-Gallidh—I am honored, but—I cannot, it would not be right—”
“Nonsense. That great empty house does nothing but gather dust. The servants are idle, and the town is desolate—for as you know, I used to give entertainments. But my home has been silent, and I do not like to think of it that way.”
“You—you are very generous, but it is not my house, I am not al-Gallidh—”
“Ayia, there is that, I suppose.” The old man eyed him.“But if you became part of my family . . .” He paused.
Azzad abruptly realized that this was all leading to a place he hadn’t envisioned.
“Is the idea so displeasing to you?” ask al-Gallidh.
“No—not at all. She is beautiful, and—and—” He gulped for air. “But she—”
“Do not say she is too far above you, al-Ma’aliq descendant of sheyqirs.”
“Here, she is infinitely my superior,” he said frankly. “Here, I am nothing.”
“Nonsense!” Bazir declared once more. “Your ‘nothing’ is a hundred times any other man’s ‘something.’ You are intelligent, ambitious, clever. You work hard and manage my estates wisely. And through your own efforts—and those of your Khamsin!—you will be a very rich man.”
Azzad heard the list of his virtues with no small perplexity of soul. His parents would not have recognized the description of their rascal son; had he changed so much in the nearly four years since he’d escaped the poison and axes and swords?
“Consider it, Azzad,” murmured Bazir al-Gallidh. “I ask this most humbly of you, my friend. I want you in my family. I want to know that when my brother and I are dead, Jemilha will have the best husband we could wish for her. I want to know that the houses of the al-Gallidh will be filled with my brother’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, descended from sheyqirs.”
“What about Jemilha?” he blurted. “What does she say about—”
Again Bazir laughed, this time until he nearly choked. “Ayia, did you not know? It was she who demanded that I speak to you!”
“She did?”
“She thinks you will make a very good husband.”
“She does?”
The old man grinned. “And she likes the way you look on a horse.”
“She—” He swallowed the rest. So much for his intelligence and cleverness.
“Go riding, Azzad,” al-Gallidh advised kindly. “It always helps you to think.”
But even miles away from Hazganni, into fields and orchards not yet threatened by sand, where all was lush green life as Acuyib had intended, he had no clear thought beyond the stupefied realization that he was going to have to marry Jemilha al-Gallidh.
Just why he had to do this was a mystery to be untangled at some later date, when he had his wits about him again. He only knew that marry her he must—and as he rode back to the city through the golden dusky gloom of spring, he decided that perhaps this would not be so bad a thing after all.
“Lady,” Azzad said, “your uncle tells me it would not come amiss with you—that you would not object—that you—Chaydann take it, I don’t know what to say!”
He glared at his own face in the mirror, disgusted that the glib seducer had turned into a tongue-tied imbecile. He was lamentably out of practice. He could excuse himself with the fact that bedding had always been his goal, not wedding. Besides, Jemilha was a lady. He had to find just the right words, just the right tone of voice—
“Lady, it has come to my notice—you have come to my notice—”
Oh, yes, his haughty and august notice, as if he’d inherited all the alMa’aliq land and money. He tried again.
“Lady, your uncle and I have spoken, and he says that marriage—”
He stopped when he saw the expression on his face: that of a man about to recite the devotions at his own funeral. He rearranged his features into serious, gentle lines—or so he hoped—and took a breath.
“Lady, it has been suggested that you and I—”
No, that made it sound like a business proposition—which, after all, it was in a way, but it would never do to say such a thing to a young girl.
“Lady—”
“You could try using my name, you know.”
He pivoted on one heel, horrified to find Jemilha standing in his doorway. She wore a robe of white silk belted over a long crimson tunic, with embroidered gold slippers and a matching gold scarf tying up her hair. Abruptly he did not wonder why all those young men had followed her today—or why they had been doing so for almost three years. The skinny little girl with the unruly braids had been transformed. But how and when had she become beautiful?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean you to hear—”
“—until you had perfected your little speech?” She raised a sardonic eyebrow.
Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. However long she’d been listening, she’d heard more than enough. So he plunged in. “Your uncle and I have spoken of marriage—”