Qamar felt it keenly that he should have been back in Hazganni, dallying with a lissome beauty, sipping cool wine as she sang for him or told him how wonderful he was. The most wearying thing in his life should have been the choice of which robe to wear of the hundreds in his closets.
Instead, his Shagara-gold skin was sun-blistered, and his clothes were rank with sweat, and his last woman had been over a month ago, and he was convinced that life was no longer worth living.
Yet live it he did, every miserable hour of the ride, every rock-prodded minute of the nights in rough camp on this quick advance through the dry summer brownness of Ga’af Shammal, northward to Joharra. He was part of an expeditionary force sent in haste to the aid of his sister Rihana and her husband, Ra’amon al-Joharra—whose former Cazdeyyan hosts had belatedly decided to take exception to the marriage.
This circumstance was prompted by two women. One was an obscure peasant girl who had visions and heard voices that told her the Tza’ab must be evicted from all lands that believed in the Mother and Son. The holy men in the mountains of Cazdeyya, calling loudly upon their captive brethren in the south, had spread her vile spewings like a disease. But no attention would have been paid to the peasant if not for the princess. Cazdeyyan royalty had a turn for religious extremes; Princess Baetrizia’s grandfather had ended his days in a cave with a cat that spoke to him, or so he avowed, in the very voice of the Blessed Mother. In a quest for similar sanctity, Baetrizia had taken this peasant girl, Solanna Grijalva, into her household, where they prayed and fasted, sang and meditated, and emerged to exhort the King every hour of the day and night until he finally agreed to march against the Tza’ab.
Qamar found much to curse about the King of Cazdeyya, his fanatical daughter, and the simple-minded child who were all causing him so much misery. Why couldn’t they practice their silly religion in their great gray mountains, and leave the peaceful south alone? Consensus was that Chaydann Il-Mamnoua’a had instilled in them these evil notions, and it was the duty of the Believers in Acuyib’s glory to defend the green land against the invader. It was all yet another move in the vast game of chadarang that went on throughout eternity, for Chaydann forever refused to concede defeat in the conflict between death and life, darkness and light. Empress Mirzah’s pious prayers were said to have kept the Empire at peace for years even after her death; now her grandson Qamar was one of the pawns in the renewed game.
Qamar did not hold to this view of life in general and the Cazdeyyan threat in particular. But when others expounded upon it, more or less lyrically as their rhetorical gifts allowed, he did not mention the days he had spent sitting with his grandmother in her room of seven cradles, answering to the name “Azzad” instead of his own.
Ayia, he did acknowledge, reluctantly, that he was nothing more than a pawn. An exalted one, to be sure, mounted on a fine horse and jingling with hazziri. But a pawn all the same, and in no way enjoying it.
His father, Jefar Shagara, was not too old to command the army in the field, but he had given over the position to Khalila’s husband, Allil Azwadh. Someday, when Khalila was Empress, Allil would have authority over the Riders on the Golden Wind, and this was as good a time as any to get them used to him. Ten years Qamar’s senior, and a cousin of the famous Black Rose, Allil was as ill-favored as Ka’arli had been beautiful—but he knew how to lead troops. He inspired them with his steely will, underwent the same privations as they did, and had not even brought with him the silken tent that was his right as commander. Had he done so, Qamar could at least have claimed a portion of its floor and a few of its pillows and slept in comfort. But Allil was tough-minded, wilderness-raised, and had no use for even the simplest luxury. Still less had he time for the complaints of his wife’s little brother.
“I weary of listening to you, Qamar,” growled Allil one evening. “Today you have plagued me. Tomorrow I want you out of my sight.”
Qamar clapped his hands together with delight. “Excellent! You’re sending me home!”
“No, I am sending you forward with the scouts. Do exactly as they say, cause no trouble, make no mistakes, and perhaps I will consider giving you back your horse.”
“What?”
“Do you think a scout can gallop along, raising clouds of dust for the enemy to see? You go on foot, my fine Sheyqir.”
The twelve scouts left before dawn, ranging in a wide arc ahead of the army. The positions of farms and villages were reported back to Allim, who then guided his troops in maneuvers that skirted any habitation. Qamar thought this ridiculous. If they happened upon anyone, they should simply kill him so he wouldn’t be able to warn of the oncoming Tza’ab. Qamar supposed his sister’s husband was attempting to live up to his name: Allim meant “gentle and patient.” But as Qamar followed the experienced scouts into hills covered with scrub oak and dry brush, he wondered irritably why Allim couldn’t have chosen to exercise gentleness and patience on Qamar instead of the enemy.
The saddle soreness of these last weeks was a horror to him and a totally unforeseen imposition. It turned out that riding a cavalry horse from dawn until dusk, day after strenuous day, was a rather different thing from executing pretty patterns around a riding ring, or galloping off into the hills for an hour or two, or ambling along city streets. That first morning as a scout, the aching in his buttocks and thighs competed with blisters on his heels and toes. By midafternoon, the blisters had won the victory. He couldn’t even indulge in a satisfying moan of anguish; his fellow scouts would have gagged him, throttled him, or worse. They were singularly unimpressed by his status as a son of the Empress. Qamar knew why. His mother had given orders: no special treatment. Indeed, they should consider him as if he were nothing more than the lowliest youngest son of the humblest family in all of Tza’ab Rih.
Grandfather would have come to his defense, he told himself as he concentrated on not snapping twigs beneath his sore feet. Grandfather would never have allowed this to happen to him. Grandfather would have been appalled by the conditions his adored Qamar lived in, and the mockery visited upon him by the common soldiers, and—
The screeching of a hawk made his head jerk up, and for a moment he was stunned by the size of the creature, its wingspan half again as broad as his own shoulders. It cried out again and soared away into the silent sky.
He had spent time enough with the Shagara to know that birds did not scream and fly without reason. But he could see nothing that should not have been in the forest: oaks studded with green acorns, various kinds of undergrowth, a bird’s nest high in one of the trees, perhaps the hawk’s own. The good farmland was farther north; Qamar supposed people here gathered the acorns, but he didn’t much care as long as they did their gathering some other day.
Qamar brushed against a large bush, its prickles sticking into his shirt, scraping his skin. By the time he freed himself, his left arm was throbbing. His skin itched. His hand began to go numb. He had crossed a small stream about an hour ago—if he could find it again, he could bathe the rash in its coolness. He looked about him, swaying with sudden dizziness.
“Here’s another of them, Father.”
At least, Qamar surmised that was the meaning; the boy spoke a mangle of syllables combining civilized speech and barbarian gabble. Raffiq Murah, who had almost finished his biography of Alessid al-Ma’aliq, had drawn up a list of useful words for all troops of Tza’ab Rih to learn. Qamar had thought this pointless. Empty your hands and Be silent or die were hardly calculated to persuade a pretty girl into bed. Ayia, but when had he ever needed anything but his face and his big, melting dark eyes?