The Salt Road (6 page)

Mariata cried out and made a grab for him, but he pushed her away and she fell back against the tree. ‘I’ll have no sorcerers in my tribe!’ he cried, kicking sand over the symbols, obliterating each one.

The poem was gone. Mariata knew well enough that she would never remember it perfectly. If she could use magic, she would do so now: she would send Rhossi to the demons, summon the
Kel Asuf
to consume his mind. She wanted to spit at him; she wanted to wound him, but she had seen how ferociously he beat his slaves. She got to her feet and furiously brushed the dust off her robe. ‘
Your
tribe?’

‘It will be soon enough.’ His uncle, Moussa ag Iba, had a painful growth in his gut and it was continuing to grow no matter what medicines he took for it. In the tradition of their people, the leadership would pass to the son of his sister.

‘Is that what you came all this way to tell me?’

‘No, of course not. How would I have known you were out here making spells?’

‘But you followed me, didn’t you?’

Rhossi’s gaze narrowed, but he did not say anything. Instead, he caught one of her hands, gave it a twist and pressed it high between her shoulder-blades, lifting her close to him. His face was so close to hers it was a blur and his breath was hot on her face. She could almost feel the spirits flowing out of him, the fire and madness of them. Then his mouth was upon hers. She clamped her lips closed and began to fight in earnest to escape him, but all he did was laugh.

‘If I want to kiss you, I will kiss you. When I am
amenokal
all the people of the Aïr will answer to me. Women will beg me to take them as my third or fourth wife, even my slave! Do you think you are better than them?’ He held her at arm’s length, watching her. Then he leant in close, his face darkening. ‘Or perhaps you think you are better than
me
?’ He could read the answer to that in her eyes. They were fearless eyes, dark and bold. And in that moment she could see that he hated her as much as he desired her. ‘You need to learn that you are not!’ He caught her by the hair, winding a hand in its black, silky length. ‘You give yourself such airs, filling the children’s heads with your stupid tales, boasting about your family, holding the Kel Taitok above us as if we are just some filthy vassal tribe. It’s time you were taught a lesson –’ He thrust his free hand hard between her legs and began to drag her robe up.

Mariata, crushed against him, was outraged. To touch a woman without her permission was taboo: forbidden, punishable by exile, or even death.

Down in the valley a wild dog’s howl shivered in the air, followed by another and another and another. Something had disturbed them: normally they lay like dry, yellow carcases in untidy heaps in the shadows cast by the drystone terrace walls, while the
harratin
dug and weeded and watered on the other side. The howl hung in the valley like a vulture, buoyed up by the hot air currents; then faded away.

But the disturbance had broken the moment for Rhossi: his head came up; then he pushed Mariata away from him and walked fast to the crest of the hill, shading his eyes to see what had caught the dogs’ attention. Keeping a good distance between them, Mariata moved to where she could also stare down into the valley, but all there was to see was a figure making its way up the mountain path, a figure that eventually resolved itself into a woman in a black headscarf and a long, patched blue robe, her head bowed, her shoulders bent as if she bore a burden on her back. Mariata did not recognize her, but since she had only been with the Bazgan tribe for a few weeks, that was no surprise.

But Rhossi was staring at the woman as if he had seen a ghost. Mariata watched as he adjusted his veil, wrapping it swiftly around his face until just a slit remained. His eyes glimmered through the slit. He looked scared.

As if attracted by the movement, the woman looked up briefly and Mariata was surprised to see that she was old, her face a bag of wrinkles, her skin dark as acacia wood. She looked sad and exhausted; she looked as if she must have been driven by powerful forces to make this hard journey, up this steep, rocky path into another tribe’s territory. Was it hunger that drove her, Mariata wondered? Or did she bring news? Strangers usually had a tale to tell.

As if it was the most natural reaction in the world, Rhossi picked up a rock and hurled it at the old woman, hurled it with real venom. It struck the stranger hard and she cried out, spun and lost her footing, slipping on the loose scree of the path and falling with some force. At once, Rhossi was off and running, leaving Mariata fixed in place, staring down at the injured woman, complicit in the attack by the mere fact of her presence.

When the woman did not get up, Mariata shook off her torpor and climbed down through the scrub and thorn and rock. By the time she reached the stranger’s side, the old woman was groaning and trying to sit up. ‘
Salaam aleikum
,’ Mariata greeted her. Peace be upon you.

‘
Aleikum as salaam
,’ the old woman responded. On you be peace. Her voice was as harsh as a crow’s.

A claw-like hand clutched at Mariata’s robe, found her shoulder and began to haul. Mariata helped the old woman to sit upright. Her head-covering had fallen off, revealing a twist of dark braids that had been intricately plaited and knotted with scraps of coloured leather, beads and shells. Here and there were bright threads of silver: these were no ornament but hairs coloured by age. The eyes that searched Mariata’s face were a bright, deep brown, without the cloud of cataract: and though they were buried in a wealth of deep sun-lines, it seemed the visitor was not such a crone after all.

‘Are you all right?’ Mariata asked her.

‘Thanks be, I am well.’ But the woman winced as she moved her arm, and blood was beginning to soak through her robe where the rock had struck her.

‘You are bleeding. Let me look.’

But as Mariata reached to examine the wound, the woman caught her by the chin and stared intently into her face. ‘You aren’t a local girl.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘I come from the Hoggar.’

The woman nodded to herself and made a gesture of respect: it was an old-fashioned gesture, not one often made nowadays, when people were beginning to forget the old ways, the old hierarchies. ‘My name is Rahma
ult
Jouma, and you must be the daughter of Yemma ult Tofenat.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘I have walked for eight days to find you.’

Mariata was appalled. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’

‘I had the honour to know your grandmother. She was a woman with extraordinary powers.’

Her grandmother had died years ago. Flashes of memory offered a tall figure, very grand, decked with silver and rather frightening, with fierce eyes and a nose as curved and sharp as an eagle’s beak.

‘What powers?’

‘Your grandmother communed with the spirits.’

Mariata’s eyes became round. ‘She did?’

‘She had great skill with words and she drove out demons; and I need someone who can do that. My son is dying. Someone has placed the evil eye upon him: he has been possessed by spirits. Every medicine woman and herbalist in the Adagh has visited him, every
marabout
and expert in Qur’anic texts, every
bokaye
; even a travelling magician from Tin Buktu. But no one has been able to help him. The Kel Asuf have him in their grip, and they care nothing for the Qur’an or for plants. It requires a specialist, and that is why I have walked so far to find you.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t have any magic in me,’ Mariata said. Secretly she was flattered. She liked to be considered different from the women of the Bazgan. ‘I can’t help you – I’m not a healer. I’m a poet.’

Rahma ult Jouma made a face. ‘Well, I can’t help that. All I know is that when I cast the bones they gave me your grandmother’s name.’

‘I am not my grandmother.’

‘You are the last of her line. The power of the Founder has been passed down through the women of your family.’

Mariata was beginning to think the stranger was herself mad, a poor, sun-touched vagrant, a
baggara
. The desert took its toll on many who lived within and around its fiery borders. She stood up and took a step away. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t have any magical powers.’

Rahma caught her by the arm. ‘I have come a long way to find you.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She pulled away, but the older woman was not letting go. ‘I can’t imagine how you knew I was here, anyway.’

‘A travelling smith passed through our village and he told us a woman of the
Iboglan
was living amongst the Bazgan, a very imperious girl; fine-boned and
asfar
; and that she had asked that a pair of earrings bearing the symbol of the hare be made especially for her. Only a woman of Tamerwelt’s line would ask for such an icon.’

The smiths carried news and gossip far and wide. So that explained it. Mariata’s hand went to her face. It was true that her skin tone was lighter than that of women from the more southerly tribes; and the hare was the animal with which she and the women of her family had a special bond.

‘The smith said she had been left with the Bazgan by her father, that her mother was dead. He also said the nephew of the chieftain was paying her a lot of attention, but that she didn’t encourage his advances.’ And here, the old woman spat into the dirt. Her spittle was red with blood: in the fall she must have bitten her tongue.

Mariata looked away, uncomfortable. ‘And how did you know I was up here, so far from the camp?’

‘I passed a tall girl herding goats down in the valley. She told me where you were.’

That would be Naïma. Mariata had shared her bread with her on her way up the mountain, and the goatherd had given her some wild figs. Fate seemed to be conspiring against her. ‘She was the only one who knew I was here.’

‘Apart from the man who threw the rock at me.’

Mariata nodded, embarrassed.

‘Perhaps the son of Bahedi, the brother of Moussa.’

‘Rhossi, yes. How could you know that?’ You could tell a man of one tribe from the man of another by the way he wore his veil – an extra twist, a higher peak, a longer tail – but to be able to distinguish an individual from another tribe at such a distance? Surely that was impossible.

‘His actions marked him out to me. He is a coward. In that respect he resembles the other men of his family.’

Any man speaking of the amenokal’s kin like that would be forced to defend his words with his sword. It was as well they were alone, although Mariata had heard that sometimes the wind carried insults to the insulted, and so it was that feuds were continued.

‘You know his family, then?’

Rahma’s expression became guarded. ‘You could say that. Come, there isn’t any time to waste. It’s a long walk back to my village.’

Mariata laughed. ‘I’m not going with you! Besides, you’re in no fit state to make such a journey. You don’t look as if you’ve eaten or drunk in days. And now you’re hurt too; and look, your feet are bleeding.’

Rahma looked down. It was true: there was blood oozing between her toes, staining the worn and dusty leather of her sandals.

‘Come with me to the encampment. I’ll make sure you’re given food and water and a bed for the night, and maybe one of the men will take you back to your village tomorrow.’

The woman spat on the ground. ‘I shall never set foot amongst the Kel Bazgan ever again; it was with great misgiving that I have come this far.’

Mariata sighed. What a dilemma. She could hardly abandon a woman who had come so far to find her, and who had been injured in the process. ‘Come with me to the harratin: they will take care of you.’

Rahma ult Jouma smiled. ‘Such diplomacy. How like your grandmother you are.’ She patted Mariata’s hand.

Down in the valley the harratin, who worked the garden-farms for the tribal chieftains, had erected a village of little round huts made from river-reeds, mud and stones. They lived here all year, while the tribespeople led their traditionally nomadic life, travelling out along the ancient Saharan routes from one oasis to another, returning in the harvest season to take the crops they had financed, leaving the harratin the fifth they were due for their labour. Although they were used to Moussa ag Iba’s overseers visiting to check on the progress of the winter foodstuffs, the sight of two desert tribeswomen walking unaccompanied into their midst made even the children stop playing and stare. A group of old harratin women stood around in a circle, pounding grain in a mortar, their black skin greyed by the flying powder, the slack flesh on their arms shuddering with every impact. They stopped in mid-strike at the sight of Mariata and Rahma. Two younger women, weaving a rug on a tall upright loom, gazed through the grille of threads at the newcomers, their solemn, dark faces sliced by the bright wool. Even the old men paused in their basket-weaving. No one said anything.

At last one of the men got slowly to his feet and came forward, head high, eyes wary. He wore a patched and tattered robe; he did not look much like a headman, despite his air of authority. He made the customary greeting, then stared at the visitors, waiting.

Mariata explained that Rahma needed attention from a healer, and something to eat and drink. ‘I have nothing to give you in return now, but I’ll come back later with something for you, some silver –’

The elder laughed. ‘What use is silver to us? Plead for some respite for my people with the amenokal: that would be the best reward you could give us.’

‘I don’t think the amenokal knows the meaning of the word “respite”,’ Rahma said.

The elder looked surprised but said no more.

‘I’m not in a position to intervene with the amenokal for you,’ Mariata said gently. ‘But I will bring you tea and rice.’

The man put his hand to his chest and bowed. ‘Thank you, that would be most acceptable.’

Mariata turned to Rahma. ‘I’ll come back to see you tomorrow.’

‘Make sure you do: we must make haste.’