“What we say to each other is none of his business,” Lander replied, not urging his camel any closer to Ruha’s.
“That is not the Bedine way. What passes between us is very much his business.” The widow’s protests were due more to the desire to avoid trouble between Lander and Kadumi than to any respect for her people’s tradition.
The Harper scoffed. “You aren’t his property.”
“Kadumi must protect his brother’s marriage. It’s a matter of family honor.”
“His brother is dead!” Lander objected. Again, he guided his camel closer to Ruha’s.
“For less than a month!” the widow answered, giving up and not bothering to move away. “I must mourn Ajaman for two years.”
“And then what?” Lander asked, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, daring to give the Harper a wry glance. “In two years, I will be in Sembia, will I not?”
Her response drew an uncertain nod from Lander. “Perhaps, if that is what you want.”
“Of course it’s what I want!” Ruha hissed. “There’s nothing for me with the Bedine.”
“I truly hope you’re right, Ruha, but how do you know there’s anything for you in Sembia?” Lander asked. “You cannot imagine how different it is from Anauroch. For instance, women wear no veils, not even in public.”
The Harper’s revelation caught the widow by surprise. She started to claim she would do the same, then felt herself blushing and could not utter the words. “Their husbands permit this?” she asked, looking away.
Before Lander could respond, Kadumi’s white camel edged between Ruha and the Harper. “You may not speak to this woman, berrani.” He stared at Lander with a belligerent scowl, his hand brushing the hilt of his jambiya.
Lander eyed the gesture with a forbearing sneer, then laughed at the boy’s bravado. “As I recall, Kadumi, Sheikh Sa’ar said that I cannot speak to her except when you are with us. Well, you are with us now, so I speak to her.” The Harper turned to Ruha. “Shall I tell you more about Sembia?”
Though she would have liked to hear more, the widow shook her head. Ruha did not want Kadumi to know of her interest in the distant land, for she suspected his reaction would be violent if he knew she intended to leave him with the Mahwa and go with Lander. “I have heard enough of Sembia,” she lied.
The Harper gave her an amused smirk. “Then I won’t trouble you with more descriptions of it.” He lashed his mount with the tail of his reins and trotted a dozen yards ahead.
“I wish to know what passed between you and the berrani,” Kadumi demanded, looking from Lander’s back to the widow’s eyes.
Ruha felt herself growing increasingly angry at the boy’s protective suspicion and the coldness with which he had treated her since learning that she could use magic. She turned to Kadumi with a condescending glower. “I want you to remember two things,” she hissed. “First, if that berrani, as you call him, did not have the patience of a sheikh, he would have killed you with your own jambiya twice by now. If I were you, I would stop acting the fool and keep my hand away from it, lest he grow tired of hearing hollow threats.”
Kadumi bristled at her rough treatment. “I am a Bedine warrior,” he snapped. “I have killed three men!”
The youth’s comment summoned the memory of the assault on Lander’s back in her vision. She wondered if the attacker was destined to be her own brother-in-law. Immediately she twisted in her saddle to face Kadumi.
“You shall not kill that man!” she snarled.
The intensity of her reaction took Kadumi entirely by surprise. Once again, he seemed more like a confused boy than the hot-headed young man he had been playing lately.
A moment later, Kadumi collected his wits. “Lander is protected by the sheikh’s difa,” he said, neatly dodging the issue. “What is the second thing you want me to remember?”
“When you want something from me, you are to ask, not demand,” she lectured sharply. “Before you have the right to demand anything of me, you must earn my respect.”
Kadumi’s bluster evaporated like a morning mist. His furrowed brow rose into an astonished arch, his set jaw fell slack, and his fiery eyes suddenly seemed very hurt and young. Ruha was about to balance her harsh words with some compassion when Kadumi spoke, his voice rather timid and meek.
“Very well,” he said, “would you please tell me what passed between you and Lander? You and I are supposed to be family, so I have the right to know.”
Beneath her veil, Ruha could not help but smile at the way Kadumi had phrased his request. It seemed to her the boy had actually taken her words to heart, but she did not intend to tell him of her plan to leave the Bedine. Even if he sympathized with her, he might still feel honor-bound to prevent her departure.
Instead, she said, “I only knew Ajaman for three days before the Zhentarim came.”
Kadumi nodded. “Not much time for a marriage.”
Ruha took a deep breath. “Your brother was a wonderful man. If there had been more time for him and I, we might have grown to love each other.”
“And had ten sons to watch your herds,” the youth added, resting his apprehensive brown eyes on her veiled face.
“Perhaps,” Ruha sighed, “but I would have always had to hide my magic, for fear that Ajaman would have reacted as you have. Probably, he would have found me out anyway, and that would have been the end to our marriage.”
Kadumi frowned and looked away, unable to deny what she said. “What does that have to do with you and the berrani?”
“Nothing and everything,” she said, fixing her eyes on Kadumi’s face. “Lander knows of my magic, and it does not offend him. Can you understand how it feels for me to talk to someone who accepts me for what I am?”
For several moments the boy did not look at her. Instead, he stared at the burnished pebbles on the desert floor with a vacant stare, his face marked by his conflicting emotions.
At last he looked up. “I can understand how you feel, but what does it matter? When you chose to become a sorceress, you chose the path of loneliness. When you spoke the marriage vows with Ajaman, you promised to honor him and his family. Nothing has changed.”
After riding a few more steps in silence, Kadumi suddenly looked away and whipped his mount into a gallop, then rode off toward the front of the caravan.
Ruha groaned inwardly at his terse departure, then closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing.
The bells of the sheikh’s camel soon brought an end to Ruha’s glum meditation. “A young woman should not ride alone,” Sa’ar said, drawing up beside her.
Ruha opened her eyes. “This one should.”
Sa’ar nodded. “Ah, yes—the curse of the flesh,” he said. “For your husband’s sake, you must be patient.”
The young widow studied the sheikh with an appraising eye. “What do you mean by that?”
The sheikh looked at the sky and shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “Only that Lander strikes me as a handsome enough man, and you are a young widow. If you were a weaker woman, it might be natural to have certain feelings …”
Sa’ar let the sentence trail off, and Ruha simply shook her head at his not-so-subtle warning. When the sheikh did not take her hint and leave her to ride alone, she closed her eyes. Before long, the rhythmic jingle of the sheikh’s bells and her limping camel’s rocking gait lulled her into a restful slumber.
The young widow did not really sleep, for she remained awake enough to keep from falling off her camel. She was also aware of a hot breeze blowing against her face and of the periodic cries of warriors when they urged their hounds or birds after a lizard or snake for the evening’s meal. The sun sank lower in the western sky, and At’ar’s merciless rays struck Ruha’s eyelids at increasingly horizontal angles. Kadumi’s protectiveness and the sheikh’s suspicions became distant worries, and the widow was resting as peacefully as she would have on a bed of soft carpets.