Beneath the Twisted Trees Page 8

  “It isn’t Dayan we need to worry about,” Hamid interjected. “It’s Neylana.”

  Neylana was the shaikh of Tribe Kenan, but Emre had no reason to think she’d be any trouble. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Hamid glanced pointedly to Aríz. “Later.”

  Aríz caught his look. “If there’s something I should know then, for the good of the alliance, say it.”

  “Forgive me.” Hamid bowed stiffly and waved toward Emre. “I wouldn’t presume to share something Tribe Khiyanat’s emissary hadn’t had a chance to consider.”

  He would say no more, and Emre refused to play his game. He continued drilling Aríz, stopping only when Aríz had scored a hit just beside Emre’s best. As Aríz went to work on his spearcraft with Frail Lemi, Emre walked with Hamid toward the ships.

  “Care to tell me what that was all about?” Emre asked.

  Hamid took his time, sauntering like a fat caravan owner surveying his fleet. “Early yesterday morning, I spied a skiff sailing hard from the southeast.” Hamid had been assigned to a scout ship. He’d returned in the middle of the night. “It had the look of a Malasani craft.”

  “And?”

  “I think it was the Calamity’s.”

  Emre wanted to laugh. “I’ve never known you to beat around the bush so much, Hamid.”

  “I’ve never known you to be so thick.”

  “You’re suggesting Haddad sent it.”

  Hamid’s mouth fell open and his eyes went round with feigned shock. “Well, will the wonders of the desert never cease?”

  Emre sneered. “Why would she have sent a skiff?”

  “To speak to the bloody tribes we’re about to take council with!” Hamid threw a hand out toward Calamity’s Reign, Haddad’s dhow, resting on the far edge of the circle of ships. “She’s here at her king’s behest. She speaks for Malasan in this camp and perhaps beyond. Or have you conveniently forgotten that?”

  Emre felt awkward. He’d grown close to Haddad after the Battle of Blackspear, while Hamid, likely because of that, had come to distrust her more and more. “I don’t know why you’re so worried about Haddad,” Emre said. “Both tribes said they were open to negotiations.”

  “That’s a far cry from joining the alliance, Emre. And remember, Shaikh Neylana was one of those who began funneling money to Hamzakiir when he tried to take the Moonless Host from Macide’s father, Ishaq.”

  There was no denying it. Neylana had been one of the most brazen about it. But she’d made amends. She’d already sent a small ship with gold and supplies to aid them, the thirteenth tribe. It was part of the reason why Macide was certain she would agree to join the alliance, the growing coalition of tribes banding with one another for mutual protection against not only the Sharakhani Kings, but the desert’s invaders as well: Malasan, Mirea, and Qaimir. And then there was Neylana’s letter, which had accompanied the ship and the gold. She’d given no hard promises, but it was clear she was open to discussions as long as mutual benefit could be found. Shaikh Dayan had sent a similar letter. Assuming Emre didn’t make some terrible mistake, both tribes seemed ready to join the alliance. More tricky by far would be the journey to the Malasani encampment. It was there that Emre, along with Haddad’s help, would broach the subject of peace between Malasan and the tribes.

  “Why do we even allow her presence here?” Hamid asked. “She’s a bloody foreigner.”

  “We have no argument with the Malasani.”

  Hamid looked at him, aghast. “No argument? Goezhen’s pendulous balls, Emre, can you even hear yourself? Have you forgotten Rafa?”

  “Of course I haven’t!” Rafa was Emre’s brother, who’d been killed by a murderous lout of a man, a Malasani, after a trick Emre, Hamid, Tariq, and Çeda had pulled on him. “But that debt has been paid. Saadet is dead.”

  “Yes,” he said, practically spitting the words, “by Çeda’s hand.”

  “Saadet is dead and we have a tribe to protect.”

  “How is that different from running the streets for the Moonless Host in Sharakhai?”

  Emre stopped and faced him. The sun beat down on them both. “That’s your problem, Hamid. You’re still acting like it’s just a few of us, like if we make a mistake others won’t pay for it. But we’re all together now. We could lose everyone. I don’t like seeing the Malasani invade the desert any more than you do, but if we make a mistake now, the entire tribe suffers.”

  “Allowing the Malasani to sail the desert without a fight goes against everything we joined the Host for.”

  “Yes, but things change, Hamid. We’re fighting a different war now.”

  Hamid’s eyes went emotionless, a sign his anger was threatening to boil over. “It’s weakness.”

  “No, Macide has the right of it. Inciting the Malasani to become our enemies before we see how things play out in Sharakhai is pure foolishness. We need to bide our time, gain allies, learn what the Malasani plan to do once the war is settled.”

  “Is that why you’re sleeping with Haddad? So you can learn of Malasan’s plans?”

  Emre went red in the face. He hadn’t been hiding the relationship, exactly, but he hadn’t been advertising it either. “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “If you’re so sure then why don’t you ask her about it?”

  “Why don’t you stick to your own business, and let me worry about Haddad?”

  Hamid took him in with a look of disgust. “Bakhi’s bright hammer, I knew Çeda had you wrapped around her little finger. I had no idea it was all women.” He began walking away, back toward their ships.

  “Not everything is a conspiracy, Hamid!”

  Hamid didn’t reply.

  Late that evening Emre lay with Haddad in her cabin on Calamity’s Reign. Scout ships had reported that both the Rushing Waters of Tribe Kenan and the White Trees of Tribe Halarijan were near and would arrive at the oasis the following day.

  As the sun went down, Emre and Haddad made love. After, while Haddad’s cheeks and chest were still flushed, she opened the cabin window that faced the setting sun and prayed to the androgynous god, Tamtamiin, one of the Malasani triumvirate. Much of the cabin lay in ochre shadows, but the sun’s golden light struck her face just so. She looked beautiful like that. The sunlight made it seem as though Tamtamiin were staring directly at her, granting her the peace the god was known for.

  When she was done, she left the shutters open and lay beside him. The dusk breeze licked the sweat from their naked bodies, providing relief from the relentless summer heat. Emre lay on his stomach, taking her in, while his chin rested on his folded arms. Haddad lay beside him, one arm running over his back.

  “A sad day is coming,” Haddad said.

  “Oh? What day is that?”

  “Your sister tribes are nearly here. Then we’ll be headed to meet the Malasani army. And after that”—she lifted her arm and slapped his bare ass—“you’ll abandon me to go and meet your shaikh.”

  Emre smiled, enjoying both the sting and the simple fact that she’d done it. It felt like she’d claimed him. “You could join me.”

  She laughed, which stung a lot more than the slap had. “Join you? I’ll need to report to my king at some point, won’t I?”

  “Yes, but what then?”

  “Exactly. What then?” She shifted closer, pressed kisses along his arm. Her fingers trailed through his long, unbound hair, raking his scalp. “I don’t know, Emre.” She spoke softly now, her dark eyes and intent look sending a thrill running through him. “There’s so much happening. I don’t know what he’ll want me to do.”

  “You won’t take up your caravan trade again?”

  “I’ll do as my king and Ranrika tell me”—she kissed his elbow with languid ease and lay back down—“but yes, likely I will. It’s in my bones. But who knows when? If the Sharakhani Kings win, there�
�s no telling how far they’ll go to punish Malasan, nor who they’ll implicate in the war. It could be years before Malasani caravans can safely brave the sands. And even then, I would likely still be a target.”

  There was truth in her words. “I’ve never visited Malasan, you know.”

  Haddad laughed louder than before, then tempered it when she saw his reaction. “You’d really come to Malasan for me?”

  “I’d come to visit its wonders.” He kissed the round of her belly. “There must be one or two.”

  She looked affronted as she twisted in the bed and slapped his ass again, and when he tried to kiss her breast, kept him at bay with a hand to his forehead. “Malasan is filled with wonders.”

  “No doubt,” he said, slipping one hand under her leg and between her thighs.

  She spread her legs as he played with her, her smile increasingly satisfied. She lay her head back and stared at the ceiling, her hips starting to move in slow circles.

  “A skiff was spotted by the scouts.” He felt a right bastard for bringing it up now, but they’d be asleep soon, and tomorrow would be busy for them both. “They thought it looked like yours.”

  She pulled him up until she could kiss his lips. “Yes. I sent one out.”

  “Why?”

  “To speak with the shaikhs.”

  Emre leaned away from her next kiss. “Both of them?”

  “Well, of course!”

  “Haddad, why?”

  “To do exactly what we just talked about. To secure trade.”

  “While war rages in the desert?”

  She shrugged. “War is the best time for certain things.”

  “Like what?”

  She gave him a shove so that he was lying on his back, then straddled him. “Whatever they’re most desperate to get rid of. Whatever I think I can turn over somewhere else for a profit. In the case of Halarijan, its bows and arrows and spears fashioned from their fabled trees. In the case of Kenan, it’s the healing paste they gather from the Haddah in late spring.” She leaned down and kissed him deeply, her breasts just touching his chest while her hips began to grind.

  He broke away. “But your ships are gone. You’ve nothing to trade.”

  “If you think they’d turn their nose up at good Malasani gold then you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

  Her explanation made sense. She was always looking for trade, whether it was jewelry, black laugher hides, intricate pottery. Her hold was full of it: treasures from the desert she would one day bring back to Malasan or trade along the way if she found a better deal. She’d even managed to get a pair of bottles of Tulogal from Macide, a legendary liquor rarely seen beyond the desert.

  “But . . . why not do that when they’re here?”

  She looked at him as if he were daft. “I wasn’t delivered from my mother’s womb yesterday, Emre Aykan’ava. If I wait, Kadri might have secured a deal before I can. Or the two tribes might have traded with one another. I needed those deals before the meeting.”

  It was a crafty move, the sort Haddad was famed for. Emre was embarrassed and angry with himself for believing in Hamid’s paranoia. “You got what you wanted, then?”

  She winked. “I always get what I want.”

  He took in her body, which was beginning to writhe deliciously against his stiffening cock. “Is that so?”

  “Yes.” She kissed him again, biting his lip this time. “I do. Now are you going to fuck me or not?”

  He returned her kiss with interest while moving his hips against hers. “Depends on whether you really want it.”

  She didn’t answer, merely smiled that smile of hers, reached down between his legs, and began stroking him.

  “Oh all right, I’m going to fuck you.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Their laughter filled the small cabin.

  Chapter 7

  DAVUD WATCHED FROM THE EDGE of the bazaar. He felt strange, wearing a turban and veil. He’d grown up here, in the bazaar and the spice market and the neighborhoods that surrounded them. His sister, Tehla, the baker, was only a short walk away through the bazaar’s choked aisles. He’d watched her working for a time but had refused to go near her. No one could know where he was, least of all his family—they were in enough danger already.

  As it always did near the noonday meal, the sounds of the bazaar and the distant spice market became an unyielding roar. It was so loud it would drown out some of the lesser storytellers, but not old Ibrahim, who had a booming voice that never failed to cut through the din. Just then he was making a dramatic face at a young, raven-haired girl while many in the crowd looked on with smiles. The girl stared wide-eyed as she listened to one of the many fanciful tales of Bahri Al’sir, the patron saint of tale spinners all across the desert.

  In this tale, Bahri had just run afoul of the shaikh of Tribe Halarijan, a vengeful man who was angry that Bahri had stolen a kiss from his daughter. Strange, Davud thought, how a man from the desert can seem so foreign, so exotic. But with the city’s origin as a humble caravanserai faded by time, it was the simple truth: the people of the desert were foreign to those in the city, and vice versa.

  Bahri Al’sir, hoping to make amends, had gone to the southern mountains to steal an egg from the great rocs that nested there. He would present the egg to the shaikh in apology and ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. He was about to make his escape when the roc returned.

  Ibrahim had gathered his long beard into a fist and was using it to describe how Bahri Al’sir escaped the angry roc with not just one egg in his pack, but all three. He was using the girl as a prop, making her reactions as much a part of the show as his story, and the crowd loved it. They poked at others to look as the girl clapped her hands at the series of clever antics that saved Bahri time and again.

  That was when Ibrahim’s eyes passed over Davud. Davud’s face was covered, and it had been years since they’d seen one another, and yet a moment later, as Ibrahim described how one of the roc eggs had hatched a young but fully fledged roc, which had rescued Bahri Al’sir as he was falling down the mountain to a sure death, he winked at Davud.

  As he closed the story, coins flew and constellations of copper and silver formed on Ibrahim’s midnight blue carpet. With practiced ease, he gathered every last coin and six-piece into a pile, then swept them into the beaten leather bag between his feet. As he rolled his carpet up, hoisted it over his shoulder, and began walking down the street, Davud fell into step beside him.

  “I thought you lost to the House of Kings for good,” Ibrahim said without even glancing his way.

  “For a time, so did I.” Davud glanced at a passerby. “Ibrahim, I need to speak to you. Can I walk you home?”

  “I’m not going home. But you can walk with me.”

  Ibrahim led them down a narrow street. As the raucous din of the bazaar faded, replaced by the drone of the city, Davud removed his veil. It felt good to speak face to face for once.

  “You always used to go home,” he said, “to Eva.”

  Ibrahim looked as if he were about to say something biting, but then his expression softened. “Eva passed a few months back. I haven’t the heart to go home for lunch any longer.”

  “Oh, Ibrahim.” Davud laid one hand on Ibrahim’s bony shoulder. “My tears for your loss. Truly, hers was a flame so bright we’ll surely see her walking in the farther fields.”

  Ibrahim glanced up as if he thought he might see her in the sky, then he reached over and patted Davud’s hand. “I’ll tell her you said so when I see her again. She’ll like that.”

  “What happened?”

  “I woke one morning, and she was gone. Passed in her sleep.” He looked to Davud and smiled through his pain. “Do you know the last words she said to me?”

  “What?”

  “‘Would you like some cardamom cookies fo
r tomorrow?’”

  Davud had to laugh. They were his favorite, and Eva’s were the best in the neighborhood, better than Tehla’s even. More than once, Davud had stolen a few as they were cooling on her kitchen windowsill. He’d thought her foolish to leave them there. It was years before he learned she put them there on purpose, knowing some would get pinched.

  “My mouth is watering just thinking about them.”

  Ibrahim blinked, and his tears fell like sun-brightened crystals. “I used to tell her how sick of them I was, just to tease her, but she would only smile and make more, or whatever else she pleased.”

  They came to a tea house with several tables and chairs outside in the street. A few were occupied. Ibrahim set his carpet against the wall and took the table farthest away from the other patrons, then motioned for Davud to join him. When they’d both been left alone with their steaming cups of tea, Ibrahim picked up his cup, took a sip, and spoke in a low voice.

  “The Spears have been asking after you.”

  “I know.”

  “They said the Kings themselves wish to speak to you.”

  “One King in particular, I expect.”

  Ibrahim raised his hand. “This is a story I don’t want to know, Davud.”

  Davud sipped his tea, an infusion of lemongrass and ginger. It reminded him of a girl he’d liked at the collegia. A poet. “I haven’t come about that.”

  “Then what have you come about?”

  “I’m looking for someone. A woman named Dilara.”

  “Dilara . . . ?”

  Ibrahim’s gaze dropped to the ring Davud wore on his right index finger. A blooding ring. Along one side was a thorn of sharpened steel, a thing he could twist toward his palm to draw blood, from himself; from another, when needed. Months ago, Davud would have been embarrassed. He would have hidden the ring. His face would have flushed. But he was no longer running from his nature. He was a blood mage. He may not like it, but he’d come to accept it. Holding Ibrahim’s eye, he wrapped his fingers around his teacup, the ring clinking against the ceramic as he did.