“The Sheyqa, and especially her Qoundi Ammar, will kill them. There are so many reasons not to do as you suggest. But in the end there is only one that matters. How could I have made this book, and then do this? How could I write these things, and then use them to kill? Because people will die, Solanna, we both know it. I cannot shame those Shagara who sacrificed their lives to keep us safe.”
She had said nothing more about it, not during all the long journey to the broad plain where the two armies would meet.
Miqelo’s hawk, gift from the King of Cazdeyya, soared sometimes overhead, and to Qamar it was yet another sign from Acuyib. He had rarely believed in such things before, but now it seemed that every turn of his head, every thought that occurred to him, held in it something of destiny. It seemed a hundred years ago that Challa Leyliah had told him the story Azzad had told about a hawk in the desert—ayia, how Ab’ya Alessid had rolled his eyes, and reminded her that the tale had grown more and more elaborate through the years about the hawk that had warned him about the gazelle and led him through the desert to the Shagara. Eventually the tale came to be that the hawk had alighted on his shoulder and guided him with cries and flapping wings to the rockslide; eventually, too, the very same hawk had flown ahead of him and Khamsin, dropping a feather here and there to make sure he reached the Shagara camp.
Qamar knew that this hawk was the very same one Solanna had seen flying over the opposing armies. And after they reached the hills above the plain, and Miqelo had found acquaintances among the Cazdeyyans, Qamar knew on the afternoon he saw the hawk flying overhead once more that the eve of battle had come.
He sought the shelter of a thicket of willow trees, private as the Sheyqa’s own tent. He sat in the dirt with a single lamp beside him, his whole collection of inks in a case that formed a desk of sorts, the green book open atop it. So beautiful a binding, plain and yet luxurious, worthy of the unique papers within. He could only hope that the words were as beautiful, as valuable.
He leafed through the book, all the way to the back where he had tucked a few loose pages. They were one of his more interesting papers, made after much thought and careful collection of ingredients. The cypress in particular had been difficult to obtain; he owed it to Miqelo, of course, who had collected such fascinating things for him on his travels. Cypress, which local lore connected with longevity. Comfort. Health. Youthfulness. The immortal Soul.
He closed the book, set it aside. Opening the case of inks, he trailed his fingertips across the stoppers of each. They were as crucial as the paper. The colors, the composition—dragon’s blood for power, vervain for enchantment, fern for magic, lavender for luck, yellow poppy for success . . . Qamar contemplated the largest bottle, full of black ink, and heard across the years Zario’s voice: “For wisdom and control, resilience and discipline. And although it is the most emphatic of colors, it has this curious quality: Black is the color that hides your thoughts and motives from others.”
More esoteric was the inclusion of fir bark, which symbolized time. But the commonest ingredients, white heather and acorns, were the most powerfully ambitious. Ground to powder, carefully mixed, each signified immortality.
Qamar was overreaching himself, he knew. There was in all likelihood a very good reason why no Shagara had ever sought to create the results he intended from these papers and inks, these talishann and his own blood. But whenever he thought about the first pages of that book, written in a controlled frenzy, he actually felt humbled: his selfish impulse of so many years ago, his determination to live, had turned out to have a greater purpose. The life he wanted so much was meant to be spent enlightening the peoples of two separate lands. Acuyib had shown him how to make the killings cease. And to do it, he must live. This was what he had been preparing for, this was why he was destined to succeed. Solanna had seen him old. He would succeed.
“Qamar? What in the world are you doing down here?”
The curtain of willow branches rustled opened, and Miqelo sidled in, an expression both worried and whimsical on his face.
“Not as grand as the Sheyqa’s tent, but just as useful,” Qamar said, smiling. “And much prettier, don’t you think? Wonderful inside, but I’d imagine that from the outside it looks rather like a lantern with a green beaded shade.”
The older man crouched down on the other side of the lamp. “We’ve caught a spy.”
“Really? Whose?”
“I’m not sure he knows,” Miqelo admitted. “Of course, that’s not particularly unusual around here, is it?”
“I would think that their Mother and Son are conferring with our Acuyib, trying to sort out whose believers are in which army.”
“And where their loyalties truly lie.”
“Are we interested in this spy, or he merely a curiosity?”
“He says he’s Grijalva.”
Qamar sat up straighter, eyes wide. “Have you told Solanna?”
“I thought I’d bring him here first. In case he says things she might not wish to hear.”
About her family, her home, her people who ought to have been at home making their beautiful painted tiles, who might be fighting on the wrong side tomorrow. Nodding, he said, “That was thoughtfully done.”
Miqelo stood, swept aside branches, and called softly, “Tanielo!” Then he took up a position beside and slightly behind where Qamar sat: guarding him. His brother Yberrio’s words whispered with the movement of leaves. “Make sure this man lives.”
There was nothing about the young man to connect him in feature with Solanna except for the wild curling of his hair. A considerable nose, a very long jaw, a rather too-wide mouth—not a handsome face at all. Moreover, the eyes were of a color Qamar had rarely seen before: they were blue. Startlingly so, with the long black eyelashes and dark skin, those eyes met his without defiance, anxiety, fear, or indeed anything one might have expected to see in the eyes of a captured spy. Instead, as he took in Qamar’s face with one coldly appraising stare, an emotion more familiar to Qamar tightened the thin lips. He had seen it a thousand times: the resentment of a conspicuously homely man for a conspicuously beautiful one.
Qamar addressed him in his own language, fully aware that his accent would mark him as one who had learned from a resident of Grijalva lands. “A pleasant evening, is it not? You seem to have strayed a bit.”
A shrug of skinny shoulders. But the expected surprise flashed across his face as he recognized the accent.
“My friend says you call yourself a Grijalva. But I think there must be something of Ghillas in your background, eiha?”
There was open astonishment in the blue eyes now. “My grandmother’s grandmother,” he said, then looked just as startled that he’d actually responded to the question.
“And her name was Ysabielle, wasn’t it?”
His jaw dropped open.
Qamar smiled. “I’ve been interested in the Grijalva family for quite some time. From Ysabielle came blue eyes in some, fair hair in others. Have you a first name?”
“J-Jaqiano,” he stammered. “But how did you—?”
“The art of the Grijalva tiles is known to me—as it is to everyone with an eye for beauty. Please, sit down. I cannot offer you a chair, but the ground is soft enough.”
The young man dropped as if his knees had suddenly given out, and then hastily arranged long limbs in a more dignified position. “You know my name—what’s yours?”
“Qamar.”
“If you’re a soldier of the Tza’ab, where’s your armor?”
“What makes you think I’m a soldier of the Tza’ab?”
“Your name. Your skin.”