Chapter 11

“Praise be to Akhran,” muttered Majiid, wiping blood from his mouth.

“Praise be to Akhran,” echoed Jaafar glumly, spitting out a tooth.

“Praise be to Pukah!” cried the irreverent djinn, springing up out of the sand in front of the camel. “This is all my doing!”

No one paid any attention to him. Zeid’s eyes were on the heavens. Majiid’s and Jaafar’s eyes were on each other. As much as each Sheykh hated the other, each distrusted Zeid more. Leader of a large tribe of nomads that lived in the southern region of the Pagrah desert, the short, squat figure seated elegantly on the mehari was wealthy, shrewd, and calculating. Although the desert was his home, his camel trading took Sheykh Zeid to all the major cities of Tara-kan. He was cosmopolitan, wise in the ways of the world and its politics, and his people outnumbered the separate tribes of Jaafar and Majiid two to one.

Mounted on their swift meharis, the Aran were fierce and deadly fighters. There had been rumors of late that Zeid—bored with his holdings in the south—had been thinking of extending his wealth by threatening the tribes to the north, force them to acknowledge him as suzerain—overlord—and pay him tribute. This was in the minds of both Majiid and Jaafar, and it passed, unspoken, between them as they exchanged grim glances. Two bitter enemies suddenly became reluctant allies.

Elbowing Pukah out of the way, the Sheykhs hastened to pay their respects to their guest, offering him the hospitality of their tents. Behind them their tribes watched warily, weapons in hand, waiting for some sign from their leaders.

Zeid received the Sheykhs with all ease and politeness. Although alone in the midst of those he knew to be his enemies, the Sheykh of the south was not worried. Even if his intentions toward them had been hostile and he had made those intentions known, Zeid’s rank as guest made him inviolate. By ancient tradition the guest could remain three days with his host, who must— during that time—show him all hospitality, pledging his life and the lives of his tribe to protect the guest from any enemies. At the end of three days the host must further provide safe escort to his guest the distance of one day’s journeying.

“Adar-ya-yan!” Zeid ordered, tapping the camel with a slender stick. The beast sank to its knees—first front and then rear— allowing the Sheykh to descend from his magnificent saddle with dignity.

“Bilhana, wishing you joy, cousin!” said Majiid loudly, opening his broad arms wide in a gesture of welcome.

“Bilshifa, wishing you health, my dear cousin!” said Jaafar, rather more loudly, opening his arms even wider.

Embracing Zeid in turn, the Sheykhs kissed him on both cheeks with the ritual gesture that formally sealed the guest covenant. Then they studied the camel with appreciative eyes, all the while praising the saddle and its fine workmanship. It would never do to praise the camel, for such praise of a living thing invites the evil eye of envy, which was well-known to cause the object thus stricken to sicken and die.

Zeid, in his turn, glanced about in search of something of his hosts’ to praise. Seeing, however, one of the Sheykhs clad only in his nightrobes and the other battered and bloodstained, Zeid was somewhat at a loss. He was also intensely curious to find out what was going on. The Sheykh fell back upon an old resource, knowing the surest way to a father’s heart.

“Your eldest son, Majiid. What is the young man’s name— Khardan? Yes, Khardan. I have heard many tales of his courage and daring in battle. Might I request the honor of his introduction?”

“Certainly, certainly.” Bowing effusively, Majiid darted a glance about for his son, hoping desperately that Khardan wasn’t covered to the elbows with his enemy’s blood.

“Khardan!” the Sheykh’s voice boomed into the night. As the sight of the mehariste had put an end to the fight between the fathers, so it put an end to the battle between husband and wife.

“Zeid!” hissed Khardan, hastily pulling the struggling Zohra into a sitting position across the front of this horse. “Stop it!” he said, shaking her and forcing her to look into the ring of torchlight.

Zohra peered out through her disheveled mass of black hair and recognized the camel rider and the danger at the same time. Hastily she shrank back out of the light, hiding her face in her husband’s robes. As Sheykh’s daughter, Zohra had long been involved in political discussions. If Zeid saw her here, sporting among the men, it would forever lower both her father and her husband in the powerful Sheykh’s estimation, giving him a distinct advantage over them in any type of bargaining or negotiation. She must leave quickly, without letting anyone see her.

Swallowing her bitter anger and disappointment, Zohra hurriedly began to wind the men’s robes she wore as closely around her as possible. Understanding her intent, Khardan swiftly and silently edged his horse backward into the shadows.

Zohra’s hands shook and she became entangled in the garments. Khardan reached out his hand to help her, but Zohra— acutely aware of the firm body pressed by necessity against hers (at least one could assume it was by necessity since both were still on horseback)—angrily jerked away from him.

“Don’t touch me!” she ordered sullenly.

“Khardan!” Majiid’s voice echoed over the field. “Coming, my father!” Khardan called. “Hurry!” he whispered urgently to his wife.

Refusing to look at him, Zohra grabbed her long hair and twisting it into a coil, tucked it beneath the folds of the black robe. She was preparing to slip down off the horse when Khardan detained her, sliding a firm arm around her waist. Zohra’s black eyes flared dangerously in the flickering torchlight, her lips parted in a silent snarl.

Coolly ignoring her rage, Khardan took off his own headcloth and tossed it over his wife’s black hair.

“That beautiful face of yours would never be taken for a man’s. Keep it covered.”

Staring at him, Zohra’s black eyes widened in astonishment.

“Khardan!” Majiid’s voice held a note of impatience. Wrapping the face cloth over her mouth and nose, Zohra slid off the back of the horse.

“Wife,” Khardan’s voice called out softly but sternly. Zohra glanced up at him. He gestured to the wound in his leg that was bleeding profusely. “I must make a good impression,” he said in low tones.

Understanding his meaning, the black eyes—all that were visible of the face hidden by the mask—glared at him in sudden anger.

Khardan, smiling, shrugged his shoulders.

Fumbling for a pouch beneath her robes, Zohra withdrew a green stone streaked with red. Laying it against the knife wound, she bitterly repeated the magic charm that would cause the flesh to close, the blood of the wound to purify. This done, she cast her husband one last look, sharper than a tiger’s tooth, and melted away into the shadows of the night.

Khardan, grinning widely, kicked his horse’s flanks and galloped up to greet his father’s guest. Arriving before the Sheykhs, the Calif caused his horse to go down on its knees, both animal and the man astride it bowing in respect and displaying a nice bit of horsemanship at the same time.

“Ah, excellent, young man, excellent!” Zeid clapped his hands together in true delight.

Jumping off his horse, Khardan was formally introduced to the Sheykh by his father. The usual pleasantries were exchanged.

“And I hear,”—Zeid nodded at Pukah, who, blissfully ignorant of the tension in the air, had been beaming upon the assembled company as though he had created them all with his own hands—”that you are newly married and to a beautiful wife— daughter of our cousin.”

The Sheykh bowed to Jaafar, who bowed nervously in return, wondering where his unruly daughter was.

“Why are you out here instead of languishing in the arms of love?” Zeid asked casually.

Jaafar shot a swift glance at Majiid, who was eyeing his son worriedly beneath frowning brows. But Khardan, with an easy laugh, made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Why, Sheykh Zeid, you have come in time to witness the fantasia being held in honor of my wedding.”

“Fantasia?” repeated Zeid in amazement. “This is what you consider a game, is it?”

His eyes went to the men lying groaning on the ground, to their attackers, standing above them, sabers running red with blood. It was the middle of the night. An unusual time for a contest. The Sheykh’s eyes, narrow and shrewd, returned to Khardan, studying the young man intently.

The moment Zeid’s djinn, Raja, had come to him with news that Majiid and Jaafar had combined forces, Zeid determined to see for himself if this disquieting news was true. The Sheykh had at first discounted it. Zeid did not believe that even Akhran could draw the poison from the bad blood that ran between the two tribes. Traveling north on his swift camel, Zeid had seen, from a distance, the altercation taking place beneath the Tel and he had smiled, his belief confirmed.

“You are mistaken, Raja,” he told his djinn, who was concealed in a golden jewel box in one of the Sheykh’s khurjin. “They have met here to fight, and it seems that we are going to be fortunate enough to witness a good battle.”

It struck him as odd, however, that the two tribes should have chosen this remote location—far from their accustomed dwelling places. On riding closer, Zeid was further disconcerted to see the tents of both tribes pitched around the Tel, with the outer signs of having been here for some length of time.

“It appears you may be right, after all, Raja,” Zeid had muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he drove his camel forward.

“You play rough, young man,” the Sheykh said now in awe, staring at the large patch of blood on the Calif ‘s trousers and the purpling marks of teeth in his hand.

“Boys will be boys, you know, my friend,” Majiid said with a deprecating chuckle.

Putting an arm around the Sheykh’s shoulder, Majiid turned Zeid away from the sight of churned-up, bloody ground, using slightly more force than politeness dictated.

“Fun is over, young men!” Jaafar shouted. His back to Zeid, he glared sternly at the combatants, indicating by hand gestures that they were to clear the area as rapidly as possible. “Help each other up. That’s good men!” he continued in a cheerful, hollow voice.

Reluctantly—eyes on their Sheykhs—the Akar stretched out their hands to the Hrana, assisting those they had been attempting to kill a moment before.

“See if anyone’s dead!” Jaafar said in an undertone to Fedj.

“Dead?” Zeid, coming to a halt, twisted out of Majiid’s extremely friendly grip.

“Dead! Ha! Ha!” Majiid laughed loudly, attempting to get hold of Zeid once more.

“Ha! Ha! Dead! My father-in-law is such a jokester.” Putting his arm around Jaafar, Khardan gave the old man a hug that nearly strangled him. “Did you hear that, men? Dead!”

Scattered laughter rippled through the tribesmen as they hurriedly doused their torches while surreptitiously bending down to check for pulses in the necks of those few who were lying ominously still and quiet on the ground.

“Come, Zeid, you must be hungry after that long ride. Allow me to offer you food and drink. Sond! Sond!”

The djinn appeared, looking grim, dazed, and wild-eyed. If Majiid noticed, he put it down to the interrupted fight and immediately forgot it in the press of other troubles. “Sond, you and Fedj, the djinn of my dear friend Jaafar, go along ahead of us and prepare a sumptuous feast for our guest.”

Sond bowed unsteadily, bringing shaking hands to his head, a sickly smile on his lips. “I obey, sidi,” he said, and vanished.

Majiid heard stifled groans coming from behind him and hurried the Sheykh along until Zeid was practically tripping over his shoes.

“Will your son be joining us?” Zeid asked, turning, attempting once more to see what was going on.

Glaring at Khardan above Zeid’s head, Majiid indicated with several urgent nods that the Calif was to remain on the field and keep the fight from breaking out again.

“If you will forgive me, Sheykh Zeid,” Khardan said with a bow, “I will remain behind to take care of this remarkable camel of yours and to make certain everyone finds his tent. Some,” —he glanced at a limp Hrana being dragged through the sand by two Akar—”have been celebrating overmuch, I’m afraid.”

“Yes,” said Zeid, thinking he saw a trail of blood in the sand but unable, because of Majiid’s large body blocking his sight, to get a closer glimpse.

“My dear cousin Jaafar will join us, however. Won’t you, my dear cousin?” Majiid said, his voice grating.

Jaafar wrenched his gaze from the body being hastily dragged off into the desert and managed to mutter something polite. He fell into step beside them.

“But surely he is not coming to eat dressed in his nightclothes?” Zeid said, glancing at Jaafar in considerable perplexity.

Gazing down at himself, having completely forgotten his state of undress, Jaafar flushed in embarrassment and hurried off to his tents to change, thankful for the chance to regain his composure. But as he went, he heard Majiid loudly telling their guest, “New wife. Wanted to see the fun but didn’t want to waste time getting to bed afterward.”

Groaning, Jaafar clutched his aching head. “Cursed! Cursed!” he moaned as he darted into his tent and hastily pulled out his best robes.

Khardan, standing in the midst of the horses, glaring sternly about to see that his orders were being carried out, heard a step behind him and caught the flash of steel out of the corner of his eye.

“This fantasia isn’t over, Akar!” came a voice in his ear. Whirling, Khardan struck his attacker a sharp blow to the stomach with his elbow, hearing the breath leave the man’s body with a satisfying whoosh. A well-aimed right to the chin persuaded Sayah that the fun, for him, had ended.

Khardan assisted the groggy young man to his tent and pitched him unceremoniously inside, then hastened back to attend to the dead. Planning to bundle the bodies into hurriedly dug graves, he discovered to his relief that, though several were critically wounded, no one on either side had been killed. Seeing the wounded delivered safely into the care of their wives, hearing laughter and loud talk coming from the tent of his father, Khardan cast a glance at Zohra’s tent. It was dark and silent.

Looking at the tooth marks on his hand, the Calif shook his head and smiled, then wearily turned his steps to his own tent and fell, exhausted, into bed.

Teetering on the edge of sleep, the Calif was vaguely conscious of Pukah’s voice in his ear.

“This was all my doing, Master! All my doing!”