They had also inherited all of Zario’s books. These included volumes that were relics of the exile, made of parchment in thin, light leather covers, bound in the outdated method of sewing together the tops of the pages. These days books were assembled with the stitching on the left. It was a small, eccentric collection, mainly poetry, and included the collected works of Sheyqir Reihan al-Ammarizzad.
“It’s easy to tell which poems he wrote before, and which after,” Solanna remarked one night. He had been teaching her to read and write the more ceremonial version of his language, the style used in all poetry. “I expect you have no need to ask‘Before and after what?’”
“None at all.” He did not look up from drawing acorns. A dozen types of oak trees grew in the foothills, and he was discovering that each had subtly different properties.
“Neither do you feel any remorse for what your great-grandfather did to him.”
“None at all,” he said again.
“Using Shagara magic to help him do it.”
He set down his pen. He recognized that note in her voice, the one that meant she would pursue the topic until he answered in a way that either satisfied her or angered her so much that she left the room. “Would you like me to write him a letter of apology? He’s dead. What happened is what happened. Nothing I can do, say, think, or feel can possibly make any difference.”
“It might, if you knew what his kinswoman has it in mind to do.”
Frowning, he stoppered his ink bottle—he would get no more work done this afternoon—and said, “What have you heard?”
“Miqelo returned from Joharra yesterday.”
She put the book aside and began pushing hairpins back into the coil at her nape. It was a very hot summer day, one of the few each year when Qamar regretted the south-facing windows that were exposed to fierce sunlight from dawn to twilight. The heat rarely bothered him, but Solanna suffered terribly on days such as these. Not that she would countenance a change of clothing to the practical silks and tunics worn in Tza’ab Rih; that would be conceding to those she considered her enemies. Qamar never quite understood how she could love him, seeing as how he was technically her enemy—but he never said a word about it. His mother would have told him he was learning wisdom, and about time, too.
“What does Miqelo have to say?” he asked.
“That there is a new Sheyqa of Rimmal Madar.”
“New? Kerrima is dead?”
“This winter. Someone called Nizhria sits on the Moonrise Throne now. A cousin of yours in some way, but I’m not sure how.”
“Kerrima’s younger sister. And before you say it, I am quite sure the death was not a natural one. They’re worse than spiders, those al-Ammarizzad. They not only eat their own young, they devour anything they can find.”
“I thought the name was al-Ma’aliq these days, not al-Ammarizzad?”
“Only part of it.” He rose and went to the cupboard where fruit juice was kept cool by their daily summer ration of hoarded winter ice. “Considering the woman Nizhria’s name recalls, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she gets rid of it. And, to be honest, it’s been a very long time since any al-Ma’aliq set foot in Rimmal Madar. The people will have forgotten us, I think. If Kerrima, who was a good friend to my grandfather and my Aunt Ra’abi, did not die a natural death, then I suspect it was done by the faction at the palace more loyal to the al-Ammarizzad than to the al-Ma’aliq.”
Solanna had finished repinning her hair, and now shook her head in amazement—an action that threatened to loosen the hairpins again. “How do you keep track of them all?” she asked, accepting the clay cup of juice he gave her. “No, never mind, it makes my head ache even to think about it. And it doesn’t matter anyway. Nizhria has decided that our land was so easy for the Tza’ab to conquer, surely her armies will do even better. From what Miqelo heard of the talk in Joharra, they fear she may have it in mind to use us as a base for conquering Tza’ab Rih itself. Or it may be simply that she hates the idea of the Empress owning more land than she does.”
Qamar hid a smile behind his cup. Solanna would never accept the notion that the Empress of Tza’ab Rih was her mother-in-law. “Has Nizhria taken into account that she could be fighting both the locals and the Tza’ab here?”
It turned out that she had. Qamar couldn’t decide if the new Sheyqa was worthy or unworthy of the woman for whom she was named. Nizhria certainly had the acquisitive instincts, but she was also about as subtle as an avalanche.
She sent emissaries to absolutely everyone who had any stake at all in a prospective war. To Empress Mairid, she wrote that whatever troublesome resistance was still to be encountered in the conquered lands, her armies would help the Tza’ab make short work of it. To the nobles, in power or not, of these same conquered lands, she wrote that only her assistance could free them of their hated Tza’ab masters. To everyone she promised that the price of her support was nothing more than a trading outpost here and there for her merchants.
Nobody believed any of it.
“Not that she expects anyone to believe it,” said Qamar as he poured qawah for Miqelo that evening. “But she’ll have everyone eyeing everyone else, wondering who will join with her and who will not.”
“And too suspicious of each other even to bring up the subject of an alliance,” Solanna added, then shook her head in disgust. “Trading outposts!”
“You will excuse me, Qamar, I’m sure,” Miqelo replied with a grimace, “when I say that we learned with the Tza’ab that once an army is here, it stays.”
Qamar shrugged. “Yet it seems there are those in Taqlis and Ibrayanza, and even in Cazdeyya, who are willing to take a chance.”
“Taqlis,” Solanna mused, “is quite a long way from everyone else. They may think the Sheyqa won’t bother coming that far.”
“I think the Cazdeyyan nobles have this in mind as well,” Miqelo agreed. “This lamb is excellent, Solanna, I’ve never tasted it dressed with mint before.”
“An experiment,” Qamar said, smiling. “When you or my other roving friends bring me samples, once I’ve done with them we use them for cooking—after testing them for poison, Miqelo, I promise! This isn’t our mountain mint but another kind—Ibrayanzan. It’s odd, you know, that in the desert there are at most two or three varieties of any one plant—as if they learned early on what they must do in order to survive and just kept doing it. But here—ayia, my friends bring back for me four types of daisy, or six different grasses, and all from the same hillside! I’ve cataloged seven different sorts of mint, for instance, and of those acorns you brought me last time, three were entirely new to me. It’s—” He broke off suddenly as Solanna clapped her napkin to her mouth, her dark eyes sparkling merrily. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” he sighed. “Your pardon, Miqelo, I’m afraid I become worse than boring sometimes. Please go on with your news.”
Grinning, the merchant ladled more mint sauce over his plate of lamb. “It’s good to see a young man with a real purpose in life, Qamar. My son—eiha, if he ever had a thought, it would die of shock at finding itself in his of all brains!”
Qamar laughed and did not look at his wife. His real purpose in life . . . after twelve years of marriage, after watching him do his research and helping him with it, she still had no idea what his real purpose was. That was how he preferred it.
“So our people—some of them, anyway—want to ally with Rimmal Madar to throw out the Tza’ab,” Miqelo continued. “I think it’s possible that Sheyqir Allil would unbend his stiff neck and accept the Sheyqa’s help to subdue the outlying regions of Joharra. They do keep him busy, you know.”