The Diviner (23 page)

“Peridots. These must have cost as much as Khamsin's best foal.” He eyed his wife sidelong. “But a small price to pay for protection against my own folly—is that the way your thoughts run, Jemilha?”

“Will you put these on, Azzad? And never take them off? If you promise, this will be the last you'll ever hear from me about what you did to Nizzira's sons and grandsons.”

“I promise.” He clasped the silver hazziri onto his arms and again tried to embrace Jemilha. Again she avoided him, turning on the heel of one white velvet slipper. In the whirl of her movement the sleeves of her bedrobe shifted at her wrists, and by the lamplight he saw the bracelets that were a match for the armbands. “Qarassia—”

“Sururi annam, husband,” she said over her should as she left the room. And he wondered if she would ever sleep sweetly again.

Ayia, this was all nonsense. Nizzira would know who was responsible, but what could she do about it? Send her army? It would be an invitation to the northern tribes to attack. Send the Geysh Dushann? Likely, but not all that worrying. Azzad glanced around the maqtabba. Shagara safeguards were all over the house in Sihabbah, the house in Hazganni, at the perimeters of all the al-Gallidh holdings. Even if assassins got past these, there were the protections on his person. He held up his arms, admiring the gleam of silver and jewels by lamplight. He and his were safe.

And there would be a new baby in the new year—a sixth son or a third daughter. It would be a daughter, he decided, a sign of Acuyib's approval. He'd name the girl Oannisia, for Acuyib had indeed been merciful to Azzad, and just.

The evening shadows deepened, and Azzad was lighting another lamp so he could read the letter yet again and gloat over it when Fadhil came into the maqtabba. His golden skin looked pallid and fragile, drawn tight across fine bones by worry, lined with sorrow.

“What is it, my friend?” Azzad asked, rising.

“Khamsin,” was all Fadhil said.

He would never know how he got to the stables. He only knew that one moment he was surrounded by books and the scent of fragrant lamp oil, and the next he was in Khamsin's stall with the reek of medicine in his nostrils.

“It's no use, al-Ma'aliq,” said Mazzud, tears unnoticed on his weathered cheeks. “He is old, and it is his time.”

Fadhil crouched beside him. “I've done all I can. Mazzud is right. It's his time.”

He knelt there all night, remembering how he had done the same when Khamsin was newborn, so that Azzad would become familiar and beloved. He remembered all the years since—twenty-two of them—that had taken him and Khamsin from the ancestral castle of the al-Ma'aliq to the city streets of Dayira Azreyq, from the brutal climb of The Steeps to the camp of the Ammarad, from the tents of the Shagara to the sweet mountain meadows of Sihabbah.

The stallion's heart stopped just before dawn. There was a final sighing breath, and a slight movement of the head against Azzad's caressing hands, and then the last gleam faded from the huge eyes.

“No,” Azzad said, and buried his face in Khamsin's neck and wept.

T
he Geysh Dushann renewed their attacks. They cared no more for subtlety. For their pride's sake, it no longer mattered to them whether or not the Shagara knew who killed Azzad al-Ma'aliq.

But Azzad was not killed. And if he had had any lingering doubts of the effectiveness of Fadhil's hazziri, he had none at all after one would-be assassin fell from a second-floor balcony and was gutted by his own ax. Viewing broken railings the next morning, Azzad traced with one finger the talishann painted on the wood. For a few moments he debated asking Fadhil to tell him exactly what protections had been added to the house, but two things stopped him. The ways of the hazziri were the deepest secrets of the Shagara, and he didn't want to put his friend in a position where he must refuse to answer. Also, he recalled very well what Fadhil had told him long ago: If one knew the hazzir's precise meaning, too much trust would be placed in it, and the wisdom of ordinary caution would fly away.
“Not even the Shagara can protect against stupidity.”
Azzad concluded that whereas belief could increase the power of the magic, one could in fact believe too much.

The Geysh Dushann came, singly and in pairs, openly and in disguise. Every one of them failed. Jemilha was true to her word; no reproach ever passed her lips for the danger. But her eyes grew larger and larger in her weary face with the strain of her fear and the new pregnancy.

Fadhil made new hazziri for her and the children. He repainted the protections in and around the house in his own blood. He sent to Abb Shagara informing him of events, and by way of reply came six young Shagara men, who worked for eight days reinforcing Fadhil's work with their own. A letter from Abb Shagara said that if the noble Lady Jemilha grew bored in Sihabbah, she was very welcome to visit his tents and stay as long as she liked. A note from Meryem was less tactful: She recommended that Fadhil tell Azzad not to be more of a fool than Acuyib had made him and get his wife and children out of Sihabbah at once. Azzad sent a letter back with the six young men, thanking Abb Shagara for his care. But he did not leave Sihabbah.

There were attempts at the house, at the stables, in the town. The Geysh Dushann sabotaged saddles and bridles, poisoned provisions, dusted the insides of gloves with toxic powder, and ignited na'ar al-dushanna that filled rooms with noxious smoke.

A little furry creature, oddly manlike about the hands and eyes and ears, was caught in the kitchen while putting something into the soup. Alessid made a pet of him, teaching him to add sugar to his mother's qawah and training him to do many other tricks. But the animal sickened during the cold weather and died. By then Alessid had a new pet: the deadly snake he found slithering across his room one morning. With its poison sacs removed, it was an oddly affectionate creature, and Alessid's hunting skills grew apace when it turned out the snake preferred succulent pasture-fed mice to the grain-eaters of the barns.

Nothing the Geysh Dushann did could touch Azzad or his family. Yet by midwinter in the new year of 630, the perspective of Sihabbah's people began to change. Outrage at these offenses became annoyance at their continuance—and this was but a step away from anger directed at Azzad. None among them had been injured, but it was hard to live in a place where every stranger must be suspected of intent to commit murder.

Azzad humbly consulted Abb Ferrhan—past eighty and more sternly judgmental than ever—and apologized for the ruination of Sihabbah's peace, promising that when Jemilha was delivered of her child and could safely travel, he would take his family elsewhere.

“But you say she isn't due until spring!” Abb Ferrhan protested.

“I am sorry. But she cannot be taken great distances in her condition.”

This was not strictly true. Though this pregnancy was giving her trouble, when none of the others had, still she was perfectly capable of a journey if taken slowly. Azzad simply had no intention of running away. And he trusted to Fadhil's hazziri to continue protecting him and his, as they had through nearly five months of unsuccessful strikes by the Geysh Dushann.

And then the assaults ceased.

Spring came, and Jemilha gave birth to a healthy girl, duly named Oannisia as Azzad had promised to Acuyib. All the children grew and progressed well in their lessons. Kallad, serious and bookish, was obviously destined to become a scholar. Zellim showed an aptitude for music, Bazir for mathematics. Yuzuf was the charmer of the brood, with a pair of huge brown eyes, soft and sweet as a fawn's, that allowed him to escape nearly all punishment for boyish misdeeds. Azzifa and Meryem were lovely, carefree, their father's delight. And Alessid, his firstborn—ayia, Alessid would soon be a man, and a fine one, tall and strong and handsome, who would be sought after as a husband by every girl in every town and village between here and the great northern ocean.

All of Azzad's world was perfectly at peace. Trade was as good as ever, perhaps better; Khamsin's last foals were born and thrived.

But Fadhil, Azzad saw one afternoon in early summer, had become old.

They were on the way to a house outside Sihabbah's boundaries. Fadhil had chosen to walk rather than ride, and Azzad went along with him to carry his satchel of medicines.

“You don't have to act as my apprentice,” Fadhil said irritably.

“You were favoring your right shoulder last night,” Azzad replied, “and you never walk unless your back is aching so much that you can't ride. I'm not the only one who observes symptoms, Fadhil.”

“And pleased with yourself for it, too, Chal Azzad,” the Shagara answered with a little smile. “Very well. Yes, my shoulder is troubling me, and I believe I rode too far with the boys the other day, which is why my back hurts.”

“Can't you cure yourself?”

“Sometimes it's wiser to allow the pain to work itself out. If it does, good. If it doesn't, there may be something else wrong that curing the first might mask.”

“You're the tabbib,” Azzad said, shrugging.

“Indeed I am.”

Their destination was a cottage just outside town—one of the prettiest properties in all Sihabbah, in fact. Nestled beneath a stand of towering pines, with a view down the whole valley, it was the home built for Feyrah this spring when she had given over the entirety of the family business to her daughters and nieces. She and her sister now lived there, tending for amusement and pleasure a garden of exotic herbs that Azzad had ordered for them from the barbarian lands to the north.

Except for trees, which were the most important of all Acuyib's gifts, plants rather bored Azzad. He appreciated flowers because of Jemilha's delight when he gave her a bouquet; he acknowledged the usefulness of herbs for healing; he had his favorites among the spices that flavored his food; he valued the grains that fed his horses. But all these required constant care and cosseting, season after season. A tree, once established, settled down and went about the business of growing. If not an eternal thing, the way a mountain's bulk or a desert's vastness was eternal, a tree was as permanent as a mere man could wish to see. It simply
was
, and
continued
, and for reasons he didn't understand he found this notion a comfort.

But this garden of Feyrah's interested him, and the interesting thing about it was the fascination it inspired in Alessid. The boy liked nothing better than to ride up here after lessons and help the ladies tend the plants. For someone as physically restive as Alessid, a liking for the gentle occupation of gardening was perhaps the last thing one might expect. Azzad had asked him about it once, and received a muddled sort of reply that boiled down to:
I like to find out the differences and the samenesses.
An interesting boy, to be sure. Azzad sometimes wasn't quite sure what to make of him, but knew he'd enjoy watching what the boy made of himself.

The ladies welcomed their visitors with all the usual warmth, plus that bit extra always reserved for Fadhil. A new harvesting of herbs was produced and exclaimed over; there were significant hopes for a powerful painkiller from an infusion Fadhil spent a great deal of time discussing with Feyrah, and this told Azzad much about the reason for this long walk today.

As qawah was served—outside on the patch of grass, for it was a lovely day—and the newest recipes for smallcakes were sampled, Azzad watched his old friend with worry in his heart. Fadhil moved with a kind of studied grace these days, as if his brain must constantly remind his body what walking and reaching and shrugging looked like to others so that no one would notice his pain. It was only when the younger ladies arrived for their daily visit that Azzad pushed aside his concern and exerted himself to be charming.

They had news for him.