The fetish priest listened to the vision indifferently and then commented just as lackadaisically, “This vision isn’t worth a trip to a diviner. In our country, even children can explain prophecies like these. I’m astonished that you haven’t recognized that the serpent represents an enemy. You’ll be exposed to an enemy’s cunning. So beware!” He started to leave, but the diviner called after him, “This world, master, is nothing but a den of vipers. The serpents in question are the people closest to us. If you want to be safe, don’t let any comrade out of your sight.”
3
That evening, the vassals came to discuss tariffs and the caravan traffic and to recount news of the tribes, foreign lands, and markets. Asen’fru, the tax administrator, commenced, saying that news of the campaign against gold had been carried by the jinn and thus had reached the lands to the south and the kingdoms to the north. Many merchants had ordered their caravans to change routes and bypass Waw. He affirmed, however, that the situation was not as grave as claimed by the oasis’s nobles, whose commerce had been injured by the attack, because the markets were still flooded with goods that surpassed the needs of the oasis, and the taxes collected from farmers, blacksmiths, shop owners, and professionals still showered the treasury with plentiful riches. Then, rubbing together coarse hands caked with a dry crust like a lizard’s scales, he concluded his presentation with the suggestion: “If my master would order the exchange of the gold that comes from the oasis’s inhabitants for pieces of silver from passing caravans, the wealth that would saturate the oasis would bring its people unprecedented prosperity.”
He exchanged a quick look with the chief vassal and also glanced at the campaign’s commander. Then, leaning forward, he ran the palm of one hand over the back of the other. The scales contracted into grim ridges with a distressing sound but relaxed once the palm of his hand passed by, and then settled once more into depressing gray lines.
Abanaban, the chief vassal, asked, “But will this prosperity last long if the oasis loses the confidence of the caravan trade?”
Although he spoke in a distinguished style well suited to a nobleman of the council, he had never been admitted to the council, despite belonging to one of the tribe’s most ancient lineages, despite the esteem in which his clan was held by the tribe’s other clans, and despite his wisdom, reputation, and the influence he exerted over other people.
The tax collector immediately replied, “Exchanging the confiscated gold for silver will suffice us until we develop a strategy to rebuild the merchants’ confidence and until we restore the caravan trade to the oasis.”
Tayetti, commander of the campaign, interjected, “Restoring the confidence of businesses that have left will take longer than optimists expect. So beware!”
He was the shortest, smallest, and plumpest of the men sitting there, but his impetuosity, passion, and precipitous speech and his body, which quivered while he spoke, showed he was also the most zealous. The oasis’s rabble assumed that the leader had chosen him to lead the campaign precisely for these traits. Abanaban inquired with the nonchalance typical of dignified ceremonial behavior, “Why these suspicions?”
The campaign commander’s whole body went into convulsions. He thrust his neck forward, and his entire body tensed and plunged after his neck, making it seem to the group that he was about to leap into the leader’s arms. In a voice that revealed both passion and certainty, he declared, “Commerce is like a runaway camel. Once it bolts, recapturing it won’t be easy. I hope you don’t forget this!”
The vassals exchanged discreet glances. Whenever they looked stealthily at one another, they turned just as covertly toward the leader to search for some clue in his eyes. The leader, who had been listening aloofly to them throughout, finally asked in a suspicious tone: “Who mentioned the noblemen’s caravans in this council?”
The vassals exchanged glances again — glances that suggested astonishment, doubt, and scorn.
The tax collector said, “I did, master.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to say what everyone knows, master. I mean, the matter has been public knowledge for a long time.”
“Which members of the council have sponsored a caravan?”
“All of them, master. The most recent is Amasis the Younger, who sold camels and slaves to send a caravan to the northern kingdoms.”
“You said Amasis the Younger?”
“He’s the latest, master. That’s why he’s been hit the hardest.”
“Why didn’t I hear about this before today?”
“We thought you would know more about it than anyone else, master, because it’s common knowledge.”
“Amazing!”
Again the vassals exchanged glances; then the leader repeated distantly, “Amazing!”
The vassals’ eyes revealed their astonishment, doubt, and scorn.
4
He was tormented by insomnia again that night.
The next morning his anxiety evolved into a lump in his throat as hard as dry dirt. Feeling nauseous, he tried to vomit. He went to Retem Valley, where he wandered for a time. Then he lay down beneath a bushy retem tree with branches decorated with new buds dripping sap. Northern breezes caressed them, making them quiver and sing. The weeping branches, which curved down, traced arcane designs like the symbols sorcerers inscribe on leather amulets.
He studied the signs on the ground and looked at the flower buds spreading down the branches. The mysterious buds reminded him of beads in an enchanting necklace on a beautiful woman’s neck.
He also listened carefully to the music.
The north wind was blowing intermittently in determined gusts. The branches responded with an energetic, communal dance, swaying in every direction like a group of ecstatic people, pulling back at times and then joining together before moaning a yearning melody.
Suddenly, in a nearby thicket, another melody broke forth.
This tune scared off the retem’s, stifling that other song. The valley’s stillness was violated, and the desert was menaced by disorder, because whenever the Spirit World’s bird sings for people in the valleys’ groves, a prophecy is embedded in its songs.
He sat up and straightened himself to listen hard and long to the melody. He observed the emptiness for a long time. The song of yearning in the retem branches was silenced. He told himself out loud, “This is an ill omen! This is a calamity!”
That evening, in a dark corner, an enemy stabbed him.
5
That evening, on his return from the shops, in the dark of an alley, a ruffian attacked him, plunging a ferocious knife into him with an apparently lethal and brutal thrust.
The first blow was the most forceful, striking him in the left side of the thorax, but his leather necklace of amulets blocked the blade’s tip, preventing the knife from finding its way to his heart. Then … then other blows followed that first strike — he did not know how many, because he blacked out immediately and did not regain consciousness for several days. He awoke to find the herbalist standing over his head, waving a necklace of amulets and saying, “Who can deny the power of amulets after this? Had it not been for these charms, master, the criminal would have slain you with the first blow. So learn from this!”
That evening the nobles visited him and sat on the kilim rug by the wall. They said a lot. They spoke, but he did not hear, understand, or respond to their questions with a single word. He lay on the other side of the room, by the opposite wall, wrapped in blankets. He felt nauseous and struggled to resist pain and unconsciousness by focusing on the remarkable craftsmanship of the handwoven palm-branch ceiling.