The Diviner (39 page)

When Mairid did not emerge from her rooms after the prescribed three days, Alessid surmised she was sulking. She was willful and stubborn, but so was he. Still, he called into his presence the servant who brought her food and water.

“What does she say when you leave her meals at her door?”

“Nothing, al-Ma'aliq. She has not come to the door to accept the food herself. The plates are left outside, and only the water is taken in.”

Scorning him by starving herself was the action of a spoiled child. Mirzah was right; he had given Mairid her own way for too long. But when the fourth day passed and no one saw her, his anger was such that he went upstairs to her rooms and flung open the door, bellowing her name.

She lay on the flowered carpet, a frail little figure in a white nightrobe soaked with sweat and stained with vomit.

When Leyliah saw her—tucked up in bed, mumbling with fever—she turned white to the lips.

Alessid, who sat at his daughter's side holding her hand, felt his heart stop. “What?” he rasped. “What is this?”

“I cannot be sure,” Leyliah whispered, suddenly looking every one of her seventy-four years.

Mirzah, seated on the other side of the bed, wrung out another cool rag and bathed Mairid's brow. “No, Mother. You
are
sure. Tell us.”

Sinking into a chair, the old woman drew in a shaky breath. “Shagara legend tells of a burning dark wind that killed hundreds of our people.”

“When their tents fell on them in the storm,” Alessid reasoned.

“No. It was a disease. Hundreds died—the very old and the very young at first, then—”

“But some survived it.”

Leyliah would not look at him. “Of every ten, four died.”

“Mairid will live.”

“Alessid—”

“She will
live
.” He stared Leyliah down. “Summon Kemmal. He will make hazziri for his sister. She will live.”

A spark of hope shone in Leyliah's beautiful eyes. “In that time long ago, there were no Haddiyat—” She stopped, and wonderment spread over her face. “Of the Shagara who survived, within a generation—”

“Then it's not inevitably fatal. Mairid will live.” He looked at Mirzah. She nodded slightly. For that scant moment, they were in complete harmony.

“Yes. She will live.” Mirzah's lips tightened as if to hold back other words, but within a moment they escaped, cold and bitter. “Al-Ma'aliq has decreed it.”

H
e did not leave her bedside. He paid no heed to Leyliah, who urged him to eat, to sleep, to guard his own health. Mirzah came and went. She brought news that others were suffering among the family. The whole of Tza'ab Rih was in mourning for the Black Rose. Alessid felt a vague sort of pity. But he was too preoccupied with Mairid, too intent on her every breath and movement, to allow himself to think that soon he might be grieving. The disease ran its course; those who could not withstand it died, and those who were strong and blessed by Acuyib survived. By the twentieth day after the dark and stifling wind swept into Hazganni, no new cases were being reported.

Yet Mairid lay in her bed, fevered and insensible—not dead, praise be to Acuyib, but not recovering, either.

“It is interesting,” Mirzah said one afternoon, while she bathed Mairid's parched and fevered skin, “that it took this to teach you how much you can love.”

Too weary to contend with her, he said nothing.

“Then again,” Mirzah went on, “if Mairid dies, she is of no use to you.”

“Be silent.”

“Who did you have in mind for her? One of the Tabbors?”

With sudden passion: “She can wed the King of Ghillas if she pleases—if only she will live.”

“Careful. She might have heard that.”

He glared at her over their daughter's frail body. “Get out.”

“When I am finished here.”

“Now.”

She ignored him, and completed her task, and eventually rose and dried her hands. “Alessid, summon Jefar to her.”

He felt something akin to hatred. Jefar, who had ridden out in the dark wind and stayed as well and healthy as ever. Jefar, whom his daughter loved.

It was bitter for Alessid to see Mairid's head turn feebly toward the sound of Jefar's voice. To see her dry lips curve ever-so-slightly in a smile when Jefar took her hand. To see the helpless agony in Jefar's eyes as he looked upon her fever-wasted face. To know himself supplanted, defeated. A bitter well from which he was compelled to drink deep. He watched them for a time, and then, when he saw in Mairid's eyes that she was lucid, clasped his own hands around theirs and said, “I betroth you, Mairid my daughter and Jefar my friend.”

It had always been enough to be loved by those few whose love he desired. Now, to watch his daughter turn her eyes to another man, loving him more, Alessid knew there was more to love than
being
loved. And in proving his for Mairid, he had lost her. But surely, surely there was someone in whose eyes he would see it returned in full unchanging measure, someone in whose heart he would always be first.

His people. Yes. He had created a nation out of nothing. They knew it; they revered him; they loved him without reservation. When Mairid recovered and her marriage to Jefar Shagara was celebrated, their cheers were for Alessid as the bridal party walked through the streets of Hazganni. They cried out his name. It was release from worry and sorrow after the long months of sickness and death, but it was also love for him. For
him
. He had made them great. He would make them greater still. And he knew how he intended to do it.

Countess Nadaline do'Joharra had resisted Tza'ab Rih since the first Riders on the Golden Wind had destroyed her father and the father of her child. Barricaded in her mountain fortress with those who remained of her father's warriors—added to those who rallied to her from Qaysh, Granidiya, and Ibrayanza, the conquered lands—she had spent these years raising her son and keeping mostly to herself. Many years later, however, with the boy nearly a man and by all reports an accomplished youth beloved of his people, she had become an irritant. And Alessid was determined to take Joharra once and for all.

“How could we have let it come to this?” Mairid asked on the day word came that the army of Joharra had retaken five important villages from the Tza'ab. “Why wasn't she killed years ago, and her son with her?”

Alessid shrugged, and resettled himself on carpets in his garden tent. “I had other things to do.”

“Ab'ya, it's time to give our attention to Joharra,” she replied firmly. “This Countess Nadaline must be dealt with. And especially her son—for he can claim both Joharra
and
Qaysh.”

“So your sister Ra'abi has been complaining to you, has she?”

“Having heard nothing from you on the subject, naturally the Queen of Qaysh is concerned.” Brisk and efficient, she proceeded to detail options. As Alessid listened, he congratulated himself on choosing her to rule when he was dead. She knew what she wanted and how to plan most effectively to get it; tenacity was an excellent trait in a ruler. In the years since her marriage to Jefar she had borne two daughters and three sons, one of whom might be Haddiyat. The years had proven that all her sisters had birthed gifted Shagara males. It was very likely Mairid had done the same. But they would have to wait a while to find out—likely until after Alessid was dead.

But he was not dead yet. And Mairid was not so clever as she thought she was. He could still teach her a thing or two.

“All very interesting,” he interrupted suddenly, winning a frown from her lovely brow. “But you forget an asset we have which the Joharrans do not.”

“I've already described a plan for using hazziri—”

“I am thinking of something more subtle than magic.”

“Which is?”

To her great and obvious frustration, he only smiled.

Later, alone with his thoughts in his maqtabba, he wrote a private letter to his cousin Sheyqa Kerrima of Rimmal Madar—who had succeeded to her mother Sayyida's Moonrise Throne earlier this year. What he proposed was not a thing Mairid would have considered. Nor Ra'abi, nor even her husband Zaqir, Kerrima's brother. But Alessid had thought of it, and that was why he ruled an Empire.

A few months after the delivery of the letter, Alessid had his reply. Countess Nadaline do'Joharra was dead, her son in exile, and all of Joharra firmly in the possession of Alessid's granddaughter Za'avedra the Younger, eldest child of Queen Za'avedra of Ibrayanza. Though it should have been one of Ra'abi's daughters, the only one available was but six years old. Thus it was that Joharra finally came into the Empire of Tza'ab Rih.

A little while thereafter, Alessid received in secret a strange and grim young tribesman from the east. He did not bow to the al-Ma'aliq, but the al-Ma'aliq didn't much mind. Sheyqa Mairid did mind; she frowned but said nothing.

“You allowed the son to escape,” Alessid said.

“No, we did not, for the son was not in Joharra. Had he been, he would not have escaped.”

“Nonetheless, Ra'amon do'Joharra yet lives.” Alessid paused, relishing the moment. “As my father yet lived.”

The Geysh Dushann tensed visibly, but only for an instant. “It was Acuyib's Will.”

“Ayia?”

Reluctantly, his dark skin even darker with the rush of blood to his face, the Geysh Dushann replied, “As our kinswoman the great and noble Sheyqa Kerrima has said it, Azzad al-Ma'aliq lived, by Acuyib's Grace, that in time our enmity might be abolished in this favor to you.”

Indignant, Mairid broke in, “Is that what she called it? A ‘favor'?”

There was an impression of grinding teeth; the man was yet very young. “Reparation, then, for the attempts on your father's life.”

Alessid nodded. “It is enough. Or, rather, it is not enough, but it will do. You and your tribe are no longer my enemies. I will so inform the Shagara, so that for the first time in almost seventy years your people may go to them for healing.”

The Geysh Dushann was silent for a moment, and Alessid thought he might have stumbled upon a little wisdom. But then he burst out, “Which will not bring back my grandfather, or my father's brother, or any of those who died in those years from the enmity of the Shagara and the lack of that healing.”

“As it will not bring back my father, my mother, my five brothers and two sisters,” Alessid retorted. “We make our bargains based on the past, but we construct them so that the future will be better—or so we may hope.” This was more for Mairid's benefit than that of the Geysh Dushann, but Alessid did not glance at his daughter to make sure she got the point. Eyeing the young man coldly, he commanded, “Declare to me, Ammarad.”

The words blistered the proud lips speaking them, but they were said. “You and your tribe are no longer our enemies.”

“Nor is the Empire of Tza'ab Rih.”

More acid, but spewed out more swiftly so as to be rid of it. “Nor is the Empire of Tza'ab Rih.” And he ended the oath by touching first his brow and then his heart.

Satisfied, Alessid asked, “So. How was it accomplished?”

For the first time, the Geysh Dushann looked smug and confident in what Alessid deduced must be the way of his kind. But his voice was bland as he remarked, “There is a family of artisans who make tiles. Very beautiful tiles. When these Grijalva came to redecorate the lady's bath, they were given . . . assistance. The tiles of a bath can be very slippery, and the waters thereupon . . .” He arched his brows delicately. “. . .treacherous in other ways.”