“Wait a moment—isn’t that Miqelo?” Solanna shook her hands free of water and started down the rise to the stream. After another moment she raised her arm and waved and called out his name.
At the same moment he let out a shrill whistle. The hawk bolted down from its perch and circled him once, then settled onto Miqelo’s outstretched arm. Squinting, Qamar could just make out the gift of a scrap of meat and the skillful hooding of the bird.
“I won’t ask whether or not I’m welcome,” Miqelo began abruptly as he dismounted, the hawk still on his arm. The jingling had come from the bells decorating the ties of the leather hood. “That doesn’t matter. But why in Acuyib’s Holy Name are you unguarded? Where is my son?”
“Collecting dinner,” Solanna said. “And a good thing, too, with an extra mouth to feed. Whatever your news, Miqelo, and I suspect it cannot be good, you are always welcome for yourself.”
He searched her face for a moment, then bowed his head. “Thank you. Leisha, I would not turn away from a very large cup of water.”
Qamar stayed where he was at his worktable, silent, watchful. While Miqelo downed first one cup of water and then two, he began tidying his pages and stoppering his ink bottles. Whatever had brought Miqelo here, he knew there would be no more work done today.
After coaxing the hawk to settle on the top rail of the chair Leisha brought for him, Miqelo sat and pulled off his riding gloves. “It’s quite a distance from the Cazdeyyan court in exile,” he remarked. “I was given this bird by the king.”
“In exchange for?” Qamar asked.
“She hunts while I’m on the road,” he went on, ignoring the question. “Very convenient, having roast pigeon or sparrow every night—and someone to talk to. The king is Baetrizia’s nephew, by the way. She sends greetings, Solanna, and hopes to see you again before very long.”
“She was always very kind.” Solanna set a cup of spiced qawah before Qamar. “The nephew would be Bertolio?”
“Pedreyo. He’s leading the Cazdeyyans south right now.”
Qamar turned to his wife. “It cannot be this year. We’re not ready. I’m not ready.”
“Eiha, it begins to look as though we’ll have to be ready.” She nodded at the hooded hawk.
Miqelo looked from one to the other of them, then caught his breath. “So you did see something that night!”
“I swear to you, Miqelo,” Qamar told him through gritted teeth, “if you do that to her again—”
“Do you know what’s happening out there?” the older man cried. “Constant, pointless, tawdry little brawls from Ibrayanza to Elleon and all places between—eiha, except for Joharra, of course! Sheyqir Allil sits in the palace and redraws his maps to include pieces of other lands, but tells the Empress that she’d better send an army soon or there’ll be nothing left to be Empress of! Yes, they’re marching, the Tza’ab—”
“My mother is not such a fool!”
“Possibly not, but what does that matter when her sisters and nieces reach back to their desert blood connections and create their own armies? Azwadh, Tariq, Tallib—they come north to ride with the Queen of Qaysh, or Shagarra, or Ibrayanza—”
“Cazdeyya will join with them?” Leisha asked. “Against our common enemy?”
“Which enemy we have in common depends on who you hate more, the Sheyqa or the Tza’ab.” Miqelo leaned forward in his chair, so vehemently that it rocked, disturbing the hawk. She unfurled one wing to keep her balance, then settled again. “Did you see the armies, Solanna? Could you tell who was fighting on whose side?”
Slowly she shook her head. “I saw the Sheyqa’s tents and the white horses that Qamar tells me are the special privilege of her personal cavalry, the Qoundi Ammar. On the other side of the hill were our people—and, yes, there were Tza’ab among them. And Shagara. But whether they were the soldiers of the Empress, or those belonging to Ibrayanza or Qaysh, I don’t know.”
“But the battle itself—did you see it? Do you know who will win?”
“No,” Qamar answered for her. “And she will not look again, Miqelo,” he warned. “If it is this autumn, and not next, then I will manage. But there will be only one copy, and that’s not nearly enough—” He broke off, frowning. “The fortress. Does it stand?”
“A few walls of it, yes.”
Briefly he closed his eyes. After a moment he whispered, “How many dead?”
“Almost all. It turns out the Sheyqa’s troops did not need their ballisdas. All they required was enough time to dig beneath the walls. And even then they did not need to go very far. When their tunnels began to fill with water, they used poisons that seeped back into the wells. There were very few wounds for the healers to treat, Qamar. Almost everyone was poisoned.”
“Those who survived?”
“Told to create the magic required by the Sheyqa, or die. They died.” He hesitated. “But not before torturing them revealed there were others who had left the fortress.”
“Geysh Dushann,” Qamar murmured.
“What?”
“A special group of assassins, kin of the al-Ammarizzad. The poison used by Sheyqa Nizzira on the al-Ma’aliq was of their making, or so Azzad always understood. They tried many, many times to kill him, but no one succeeded—until you Shagara,” he finished bitterly.
Miqelo stiffened. “Not everyone agreed with what happened—”
“It doesn’t matter. The poison released into the groundwater seeped into the wells. That was Geysh Dushann.” He laughed without mirth. “Just like before!”
“Only now it is not the al-Ma’aliq but the Shagara—”
“Vengeance!” Qamar pushed himself to his feet, fists clenched. “That’s how it all started, don’t you see that? Over and over and over, people killing, ordering others killed, people dying in battle or when their towns burn—”
“Qamar,” Solanna asked in a soft voice, “are you saying Azzad al-Ma’aliq was wrong to avenge the slaughter of his entire family?”
“Ayia, the chain reaches farther back than that. Nizzira hated the al-Ma’aliq for their power, for being beloved of the people. They hated her family for seizing the Moonrise Throne based on lies—claiming the al-Ammarizzad were responsible for what al-Ma’aliq warriors did, when the barbarians were thrown out of Rimmal Madar. Yes, barbarians—the same thing the Tza’ab call you!” He began to pace. “A chain I termed it, and a chain it is. Iron chains, fetters, shackles—every generation forging more links, and doing it willingly! Death following death following death—by Acuyib, does it never stop? Does the ground have to be soaked in blood before it stops?”
Words came to him then, with such suddenness that it made him breathless, unable to speak. So many words, crowding his mind, demanding to be written. No one but Solanna noticed it, because Tanielo and Nissim had returned, and the young man recognized his father and ran to greet him. But Qamar knew that Solanna saw it in his face, in his eyes. He could sense her watching him as he turned away, wrapped his arms around his ribs, shook his head as if to clear it of the words.
He made no excuses, simply walked away from them all into his workroom and lit all the lamps. He had left blank the first few pages of the green leather book, believing that once he was finished he would write an introduction to guide students through what followed. He had believed wrongly. It was not an introduction but a justification, an argument addressed to everyone, not just the Shagara.