A Veil of Spears Read online

  “What plans?”

  “First, there are those in the House of Maidens I would speak to.”

  “Zaïde?”

  “Among others. I wish to see if any will join our cause.”

  A bark of a laugh filled the pavilion, but a moment later, when he realized she was serious, he sobered. “The Maidens? Çeda, we have some few spies like Zaïde, but you’ll find no more allies there.”

  “I disagree. I think I can turn one of the women from my hand.”

  “Who?”

  “Melis.”

  “Melis Yusam’ava? She’s fiercely loyal to the Kings.”

  “She is, but she tires of the struggle. Sümeya does as well.”

  Ishaq reeled, an angry look distorting his rough features. He turned to Leorah. “Are you listening to her?” Then to Çeda, “Sümeya is First Warden!”

  “Yes. But you don’t know these women like I do. At the very least, I’ll be able to sow doubt among them. And I would look further into the silver trove.”

  Ishaq made a chopping motion with his hand. “Who told you about that? Your mother? It’s nothing but a wild tale, Çeda.”

  “Perhaps, and perhaps not. I would learn the truth either way. And lastly, the asirim are there. I must know if there is a way to free them. Zaïde may help. Melis or Sümeya may too. Perhaps even our lost King, Sehid-Alaz.”

  The hint of a frown that seemed always to be present on his lips deepened. “Even bone crushers learn to eat their kills one bite at a time, girl.”

  “I’m no girl.”

  He paused, his dark eyes assessing her anew. “No, you’re not. You’ve done much to sing about. Which makes your words all the more bitter. With you safe at last I thought you would join us.”

  “I may still, but all roads lead to Sharakhai. The asirim are there. The Maidens are there. The Kings are there.”

  “The desert is in turmoil. Tribe Masal has fallen to Onur. Word came only yesterday that Tribe Kadri have sent emissaries to him. Their shaikh, Mihir Halim’ava al Kadri, the new Lord of the Burning Hands, has little love for the Kings of Sharakhai and sees this as an opportunity for revenge for his mother’s death at the hands of King Ihsan. Onur may soon have the strength of three tribes at his command. And when word spreads, a fourth may follow, then a fifth. If we’re not careful, he may unite all the desert tribes.”

  “Doubtful,” Çeda said. “Tribes Ebros, Okan, and Kenan are loyal to the Kings. The rest have no reason to take up sword and spear to stand against Sharakhai, certainly not standing beneath Onur’s banner.”

  “You are a child of Sharakhai,” he replied in lofty tones, “so you cannot understand how ready the tribes are to see the Kings fall. Few will say it openly, and many will not be easily convinced it can be done, but there is a long-burning hatred in every tribe. Onur, though a King himself, need only to throw oil on that flame it for it to be rekindled.” He paused. “Perhaps, after due thought, we’ll be the oil that spreads the fire. This is why we’ve taken such a risk in calling the tribe together. We’re ready to decide how our tribe, Tribe Khiyanat, will proceed. Which is why I’m glad you’ve come. You have much to offer. You can share what you know of the Kings. You can train those who need it.”

  When Çeda said nothing, Ishaq stated it flatly. “Join us, Çeda. For those of our tribe, the roads of Sharakhai have too often led to the farther fields. We need everyone we can, here in the desert.”

  She couldn’t do it. Not now, in any case. Accept, and she would formally become a part of the tribe. Accept, and she would need to obey his commands just like everyone else in the tribe did. “I will return to Sharakhai.”

  “Even though Melis may betray you at her first opportunity? Even though the silver trove may be a mirage? Even though it may take years to undo the chains that bind the asirim?”

  “Yes. Who am I to you anyway but one more warrior to add to your ranks?”

  “You are my granddaughter.”

  “Then give your granddaughter the freedom she needs.”

  Ishaq was red-faced. There were words on his lips—a command for Çeda to remain, no doubt—but just then a bell began to ring, a call to the midday meal. Leorah spoke quickly. “Help an old woman to food by a fire with those she loves.” And she held out her arm for Ishaq to take.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he did. “We are not done discussing this,” he said to Çeda, “not by a league.” Then he helped Leorah toward the exit.

  As Çeda rose to follow, Leorah turned and winked at her.

  Chapter 21

  THE SUN WAS SETTING OVER THE SHANGAZI.

  Çeda sat on the sand near a spitting fire while dozens of small children gabbled and groused and giggled around her. They were in the space between the tribe’s ships, and it was abustle with the ends of the midday meal. The heat of the day was easing, and the air was filled with stories, mirth, and no small number of friendly arguments.

  The day had flown by. After a meal with the tribe, Çeda and Leorah had taken a long walk together—her constitutional, Leorah called it—then sat on the deck of her yacht and talked. Leorah seemed to be taking great pains to keep the conversation light. She spoke of inconsequential things. The foods Çeda liked. The ones she hated, particularly those Ahya might have forced her to eat. She laughed when Çeda confessed to despising eggplant, a thing her mother insisted on making at least once a week.

  “That was my recipe,” Leorah said, then laughed at Çeda’s embarrassment.

  “I liked it a bit,” Çeda said, trying to recover.

  But Leorah waved her worries away. “There’s no telling the appetites of babes. I never liked it much myself. We rarely had it—few enough caravans carried eggplant in those days—but when we did, Ahya always took a stack of flatbread and devoured half the bowl herself. I suspect it became a piece of home after she’d left the desert.”

  They spoke further of the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. They spoke of music, of plays, of jongleurs and storytellers, and the confidence men of Sharakhai who preyed on those who came to the city with purses full of gold and eyes full of wonder. Occasionally Çeda would ask Leorah of life here in the desert. She would gladly answer, but always in such a way that allowed her to steer the conversation back to the desert’s Amber Jewel.

  She’s fascinated by it, Çeda realized. Perhaps because Ahya went there and she never saw her daughter again. Or because she’d never been. Or both.

  From then on, Çeda went on at length on any topic Leorah chose. There would be time soon enough to talk about growing up in the Great Shangazi.

  When the evening meal came, Çeda decided to sit with a group of the children. She missed their laughs, the sounds of them playing along the streets of Roseridge. A young girl with brown hair hanging like a curtain over her face looked over to Çeda and gestured at her bowl. “Do you like it?”

  Çeda smiled. “It’s joyous.”

  The girl’s grin was wide as the sunset. She’d helped to make the stew—as she’d made a point of telling Çeda and everyone else before they’d sat to eat. The food was simple but mouthwatering. Spit-roasted goat in a broth of tomatoes and onions and pine nuts over puffy brown rice. Lemon-salted flatbread dipped into a mouth-watering yoghurt laced with garlic and goat cheese and a fresh herb collected from the nearby mountainside that tasted like fire-kissed cumin. They drank clear, natural well water laced with cucumber and mint. And araq the likes of which she’d never tasted. It had a nose of rich leather and hints of smoke, tasted like currant and fire berry jam mixed with fresh honey, and finished with a pleasant coppery burn.

  “My own!” said an old, thin man one fire over when he saw how much she appreciated it.

  He was raising his glass, and Çeda raised hers in reply. “An elixir Bakhi himself must lust after.”

  He smiled more broadly, revealing a landscape of missing teeth, then
both of them took another healthy swallow.

  The twin moons rose in the eastern sky—Tulathan a silver sickle, Rhia a beaten golden coin. There was music and dancing and song. When true night fell, Kerim released a long wail that fell across the celebration like a burst of rain. The music stopped. All, even Ishaq, looked around nervously. They were used to this, Çeda realized—the threat from the Kings always hounding them, always hanging over their heads.

  “Please,” she said, standing and raising her glass. “All is well.” She motioned for the music to continue, then took the hand of the girl who’d sat by her side. She’d been dancing with her brother, and Çeda motioned them both to dance with her. They did, the three of them twirling with one another as the song resumed. The mood of merriment returned, if slightly more subdued than before.

  “May I have this dance?” a voice asked as a new song began.

  She knew the voice well but was still surprised to find him standing before her when she turned. “Dardzada.”

  The old apothecary bowed his head to her, his hand raised.

  “When did you arrive?” she asked as she accepted his hand and the two of them began to dance over the carpets.

  “Only a short while ago.”

  Çeda looked over his shoulder toward the ships, where others were trudging toward the gathering, some carrying huge bunches of fresh dates over their shoulders.

  “Is Emre with you?”

  “No.” Dardzada smiled sadly. “I thought he’d be here by now.”

  They danced for a while, the two of them silent. It felt strange. Their history still stood between them—him raising her for a time after her mother died, the harsh way he’d treated her—but she couldn’t deny it felt good.

  “Do you plan to stay with the tribe?” Çeda asked. “Find yourself a wife?”

  This time when Dardzada smiled, it was genuine. “I fear it’s too late for me. I am married to our cause.”

  Çeda laughed. “I daresay you could be married to the cause and still share warmth beneath a blanket.”

  “You may be right. Perhaps I’ll be struck by Yerinde’s curse yet.”

  Continuing to dance, Çeda took in the night around her. The ships, the songs, the dancing, the children running around their parents or spinning until they fell laughing to the carpets on the sand.

  “What are we doing out here, Dardzada?”

  “Rebuilding,” Dardzada said as the song began to pick up its pace.

  “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? That we’re finally coming together?”

  “It is,” he replied softly, “and it’s dangerous as well.”

  She looked to Ishaq, who was sitting with several older men and women, each drawing from a shisha tube and talking low with one another. For a moment, Çeda saw them in their youth, not so different from how she, Emre, Tariq, and Hamid once were.

  “You don’t approve?” she asked Dardzada.

  “Who am I to approve or disapprove of what Ishaq is doing?”

  “The danger may be great,” Çeda said, “but it was always going to be, no matter when it happened. Perhaps it will give everyone heart. Perhaps it will bolster support for us among the other tribes. Perhaps it will sway those in Sharakhai as well. It could even lead to revolt in the city.”

  “Perhaps, but there is no doubt it will soon attract the attention of the Kings. Sooner or later they will come for us.”

  “Then we’ll have to be ready for them, won’t we?” In that moment, Çeda wished she was already on the way to Sharakhai. She closed her eyes as Dardzada lifted her hand and she twirled. The music, the conversation, the laughter . . . It filled her. She hadn’t realized how much she needed this, a reminder of all she’d been fighting for. “If we accomplish nothing else, we will have revealed the truth. The Kings will have to admit what happened to our tribe.”

  “Oh, Çeda.” Dardzada stopped dancing, though he still held her hands. “Even before I left, the Kings were starting rumors, spreading more propaganda, saying the Moonless Host are pretenders who are fabricating stories of a lost tribe for their own benefit. It’s laughable, they’re saying. The traitor Ishaq’s last gamble as the Host lose faith in him. The lords and ladies in the House of Kings and Goldenhill are eating it up, spreading it wide. Those who live off the teat of the Kings believe it, or say that they do, prompting others to repeat the same story. Only in the west end do they speak openly of denying the Kings’ stories, and when have they ever mattered in the grand scheme of Sharakhai’s workings?”

  “The truth will spread,” Çeda said, releasing Dardzada’s hands. “It must!”

  Dardzada shrugged, as if this meant little more to him the price of figs. “Only the gods can know, but already the war of ideas has resumed. Death comes for those who speak openly of the thirteenth tribe while those who take the Kings’ word are favored.”

  When will it end? Çeda wondered. But she already knew the answer.

  When the Kings lay dead, their bodies burned, their bones buried in the sand.

  She glanced east, where Kerim was hidden by the night. No, she vowed. The truth will come. I will make them believe.

  Kerim’s wail lifted above the celebration. It was lonelier this time, an echo of Çeda’s feelings. The celebration quieted, but Ishaq nodded to the musicians, who hardly missed a beat.

  Free us, Kerim pleaded. Gods, the ache in him. She could feel it smoldering in her chest.

  Soon, she replied. Trust me.

  “Çeda?” a voice called from across the nearby fire.

  Leorah was beckoning Çeda to follow her, a solemn expression on her tattooed face. For a moment, the amethyst on her left hand seemed to glow in the firelight before her. Çeda blinked, realizing just how much araq she’d drunk, and the strange effect was gone.

  “I am called away,” she said to Dardzada.

  Dardzada waved one meaty hand. “Go. We can speak tomorrow.”

  Çeda followed Leorah, who led Çeda toward her yacht. Her limp was noticeably better. She walked more upright, as if the years no longer weighed on her so heavily. Probably the araq, Çeda thought, though she couldn’t remember seeing Leorah drink any.

  Inside the yacht they moved to Leorah’s cabin, which was small but had more than enough room for both of them to sit—Leorah on her bed, Çeda on a small padded stool near the desk built against the opposite wall. Colorful scarfs and sun catchers were arrayed like the petals of a blooming flower across the ceiling. A lantern hanging from a hook at the center set the petals to dancing. Pleasant, Çeda thought, something uniquely Leorah’s.

  “I’ve something to show you,” Leorah said as she rummaged in a small chest by her feet. She took out a piece of papyrus, upon which was an impressive charcoal sketch of a tattoo laid across a woman’s back.

  My back, Çeda realized.

  Dardzada’s oval-shaped tattoo—the ancient calligraphic sigil he’d forced on her when she’d turned thirteen—was in the center. Above it Leorah had sketched Tauriyat, and added lyrical words that captured the battle, the death of King Mesut, and the role she’d played in both. More of her tale, including small pictographs, were added along her shoulder blades, so that together it all looked like a spread-wing falcon across her upper back and neck, with the tips of the feathers brushing her shoulders and arms.

  “It’s beautiful,” Çeda said.

  “I’m glad you think so,” Leorah replied. She motioned to a set of inks and bowls and various bamboo tattooing needles. “Shall we begin?”

  “Now?”

  “What better time? You’ll be leaving for Sharakhai soon.”

  “Not if Ishaq has anything to say about it.”

  Leorah’s smile was confident. “Ishaq will come around.”

  Çeda stared at the drawing, taking in all of the words, all of the images, and how they seemed to be consuming Dardzada’s old t
attoo. No, not consuming it. Adding to it. Creating a larger tale. Suddenly tears were falling down her cheeks. She wiped them away and nodded to Leorah.

  After shifting the stool, she shrugged her arms out of her thawb and gathered the cloth around her waist. Leorah poured blue inks into a well, then wiped Çeda’s skin with an araq-soaked rag. Then she set to, tapping away with a striking stick, the needle biting into the nape of Çeda’s neck.

  “I hope you’ll remain long enough for me to finish it.”

  Her speech seemed to have a different cadence than earlier in the day. Çeda might not have noticed had they not talked so much after the discussion with Ishaq. It wasn’t something she could attribute to liquor. If anything, Leorah was talking more steadily than before. You’re being foolish, Çeda thought. Leorah had vanished for some time as the sun was setting. She might have simply taken a nap.

  “Of course I will,” Çeda said.

  “You remind me of Ahya, you know. You’re direct. You stand your ground. You’re loyal to those you love. But Ahya was always headstrong. Too much so in the end.”

  “She killed a King.”

  “One, when her goal was to kill them all.” As she continued to strike the needle, Çeda’s body rose to meet the pain, and it became something wider, deeper—something more grand, as if the pain itself were telling part of Çeda’s tale. “Ishaq isn’t like Onur, you know. He isn’t a King, and doesn’t pretend to be.”

  Çeda stiffened. “He wants to control me.”

  “Mmm, yes and no. He wants control over his burgeoning tribe, a thing I can hardly blame him for. He’s navigated the sands well enough since taking the reins of power so many years ago. But that isn’t the only reason he asked you. He doesn’t want to lose you as he lost Ahya. And when he looks at you, he can’t help but be reminded of her.”

  It made perfect sense, but for some reason the realization made her uncomfortable. “Was it difficult for him when he learned of her death?”

  As Leorah leaned back to stretch, the sound of whooping and laughter drifted in from outside. “Of course,” she said, resuming her work. “That isn’t quite what I meant, though. Ishaq lost Ahya ten years before she died at the hands of the Kings. He never wanted her to go to Sharakhai. He was fearful from the beginning over what might happen to her.” Leorah paused her needle. “Sit still.”