“We’ve been petting Khamsin—”
“—I hope it’s all right that we gave him carrots—”
“—he nibbles daintily as a lamb!”
Azzad laughed. “He knows to behave himself around ladies.” Pushing himself to his feet, he bowed to Feyrah. “My thanks, as always. Perhaps you will agree to advise me on a new type of qawah blend some farmers along the coast have concocted. I shall send a bag up to you, and await your judgment.”
Feyrah nodded acceptance of this means of paying her for her time. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“You’re not leaving so soon!” cried Lalla.
Yaminna made a face at her pouting cousin. “Do you really think to tempt al-Ma’aliq?”
Azzad bowed. “I am tempted almost beyond reason every time I visit here.”
“A lie!” laughed Meyza. “Everyone knows your eyes are only for your wife!”
He smiled ruefully and shrugged. “Nonetheless, I must abandon the unique fascinations of your company. I have an appointment later today with Ferrhan Mualeef, who has literary ambitions and seems to think my life makes a good story.”
“Ayia, he was here some days ago,” Lalla said with a giggle. “What do they teach their young men in Hazganni?”
Azzad deduced she had not been impressed and gave thanks he had learned his lessons in Dayira Azreyq.
It all seemed a very long time ago. Another life. Another Azzad. As he rode back down to Sihabbah proper, he reflected on how much this land and its peoples had shaped and changed him, had made him their own. His life had been saved by the Shagara, who befriended him and made his enemies theirs. He had married a noblewoman of Sihabbah, who had made him so thoroughly hers that he had not even thought about another woman since his marriage. What had he done in return, for these people and this land? Ayia, the horses and the trees—they were the most obvious—but most important were the children. They belonged here, to a land and a people theirs by right of birth. Azzad had given five sons and two daughters to this place that had become his life. He considered the debt paid.
But the debt to the Shagara, for giving him back the life he had so nearly lost in the wastelands—that could never be repaid. For the wise Feyrah had been correct: It was the loss of everything else that had made him look deeper than he ever would have done, and if she had been mistaken about the nobility of what he’d found there . . . still, it made a pretty wrapping for a thing that would be very ugly indeed.
The Geysh Dushann who had visited the ladies was seen in Sihabbah only once more—when his body was recovered from a streambed that marked the border of Azzad’s farthest pasture. The fence he had evidently attempted to climb was studded every few handspans with thorns such as were used in Shagara fencing; perhaps he had pricked a finger and died of the poison, or perhaps he had simply lost his balance. By the time he was found, it was difficult to tell.
A curious thing was found in his possessions, something the ladies had not known to be significant. A small drawstring pouch, stamped on the outside with talishann, hung from a leather thong around his neck. Inside was a chunk of pyrite and a bit of hammered tin with a sign Fadhil did not recognize, packed in amid six different kinds of dried leaves and flowers. Fadhil identified two herbs as moderately curative, but to put them in combination with the others was a waste of a healer’s time and effort. Perhaps the blend had been meant merely to provide a pleasing scent—if so, it had long since faded.
The pyrite was of interest for its qualities of practicality, memory, and protection. The Shagara markings on the pouch meant nothing more sinister than success, luck, and knowledge. But when Fadhil detected a trace of rust-colored stain on the tin, he frowned and sorted through the dried herbs again. A tiny clump of leaves and flower petals was stuck together with blood. Shagara blood. Whatever the unfamiliar talishann meant, someone had been serious about this pouch and its contents.
“No match for your skills, certainly,” said Azzad, shrugging, and poured more qawah for his wife and Fadhil. “Merely another failed assassin.”
Jemilha, watching Fadhil’s studied lack of expression, said quietly, “Or the first to be armed with Shagara work. He is the first, is he not?”
“Insofar as I am aware,” the healer admitted, uneasiness shifting his shoulders just a little. “I think that he may have obtained these things illicitly—in which case the talishann would not function as well as if they had been made specifically for him.”
“Have you ever seen such a collection before, worn in a pouch filled with herbs?” she persisted.
“Ayia, there are certain antiquated customs—”
“Herbs that are mostly useless for healing? Herbs that had lost their fragrance long since?”
Azzad approached and formally presented her with a fresh cup of qawah. “Qarassia, if it will bring peace to your thoughts, I will send to Challa Meryem and ask. But we all know that the Geysh Dushann are forbidden the healing tents of the Shagara, so this man must have stolen these things—hoping in vain that they would protect and aid him. They did not. So ends another Geysh Dushann.”
“And this discussion?” she asked, in that silken tone he had come to dread over the years, a tone like a soft fog that wrapped a man’s heart in sudden ice.
“If there is nothing else to say, nothing else to learn, and nothing to plan for . . .” He shrugged again.
“And you have far more important plans to make—yes, I know, husband.” She set aside her untasted drink and rose. “The children’s lessons must be heard. I will leave you to your plans.”
Azzad hesitated, then asked, “Once Alessid, Bazir, and Kallad have recited to your satisfaction, may I see them afterward?”
Her face tightened like an angry fist. But all she did was nod and stalk out of the room in a swirl of bright silks.
“She isn’t happy,” Fadhil said mildly.
Azzad cocked a sardonic brow. “I’m sure she was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
“She could forbid this, you know. It is well within her rights.”
“Happy or unhappy, approving or disapproving—she understands. Men simply see a thing and decide one way or another and don’t bother much with reasons. Women think. And those who think longest understand best. As the writings have it, men’s thoughts are the sand, easily scattered by any wind that happens along. But women are the rich earth that grows thoughts and ideas, and from these come understanding.”
“And what of you, the one they are calling Il-Kadiri?” Fadhil smiled.
“That silly child, Ferrhan Mualeef, has been reading bits of his work to you, hasn’t he?” Azzad sighed. “’Bringer of Green,’ indeed! It’s only common sense—”
“Sense, Meryem says, is the least common thing of all.” He glanced around as Alessid’s voice echoed down the stairwell, teasing his brothers into a jumping contest. “Do we tell them everything tonight?”
“Not quite everything. They’re good boys, but still only boys, after all. They might say something unawares.”
“And we cannot allow a single grain of sand to stray outside Sihabbah, or it will surely stick in the eye of this Sheyqir Reihan. Ayia, when the time comes for them to know everything, I will be ready with something for them.” He frowned. “I wish, though, that I knew how the Geysh Dushann came by those Shagara items. And what that strange sign means.”
Whatever Azzad would have replied was lost, for Alessid burst into the room, Bazir and Kallad a step behind him, shouting, “I won! I won!”