Chapter 6

We do not beat the whipped dog. . . Are you going to lie down on your master’s grave and die?

Crouched in his dark cell, Achmed repeated the Amir’s words to himself. It was true. Everything the Amir said was true!

“How long have I been in prison? Two weeks? Two months?” Despairing, Achmed shook his head. “Is it morning or night?” He had no idea. “Have I been fed today, or was that yesterday’s meal I remember eating? I no longer hear the screams. I no longer smell the stench!”

Achmed clutched at his head, cowering in fear. He recalled hearing of a punishment that deprived a man of his five senses. First the hands were cut off, to take away the sense of touch. Then the eyes were gouged out, the tongue ripped from the mouth, the nose cut off, the ears torn from the head. This place was his executioner! The death he was dying was more ghastly than any torture. Misery screamed at him, but he had lost the ears to hear it. He had long ago ceased being bothered by the prison smell, and now he knew it was because the foul stench was his own. In horror, he realized he was growing to relish the guards’ beatings. The pain made him feel alive. . .

Panicstricken, Achmed leaped to his feet and hurled himself at the wooden door, beating it with his fists and pleading to be let out. The only response was a shouted curse from another cell, the debtor having been rudely awakened from a nap. No guards came. They were used to such disturbances. Sliding down the doorway, Achmed slumped to the floor. In his halfcrazed state, he fell into a stupor.

He saw himself lying on a shallow, unmarked grave, hastily dug in the sand. A terrible wind came up, blowing the sand away, threatening to expose the body. A wave of revulsion and fear swept over Achmed. He couldn’t bear to see the corpse, decaying, rotting. Desperately, he shoveled the sand back over the body, scooping it up in handfuls and tossing it onto the grave. But every time he lifted a handful, the wind caught it and blew it back into his face, stinging his eyes, choking him. He kept working frantically, but the wind was relentless. Slowly, the face of the corpse emerged—a man’s face, the withered flesh covered by a woman’s silken veil. . .

The scraping sound of the wooden bar being lifted from the door jolted Achmed out of his dream. The shuffling footsteps of prisoners being herded outside and the distant cries of women and children told the young man that it was visiting time.

Slowly Achmed rose to his feet, his decision made.

Emerging into the bright sunlight, Achmed squinted painfully against the brilliance. When he could see, he scanned the crowd pressed against the bars. Badia was there, beckoning to him. Reluctantly, Achmed crossed the compound and came to stand near her.

The woman’s eyes, above the veil, were shadowed with concern.

“How is my mother?” Achmed asked.

“Sophia is well and sends her love. But she has been very worried.” Badia examined the young man intently. “We heard that the Amir sent for you. That he spoke to you. . . alone.”

“I am all right.” Achmed shrugged. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing? The Amir sends for you for nothing? Achmed”— Badia’s eyes narrowed—”there is talk that the Amir offered you a place in his army.”

“Talk! Talk!” Achmed said impatiently, turning from the woman’s intense gaze. “That is all.”

“Achmed, your mother—”

“—should not worry. She will make herself ill again. Badia”—Achmed changed the subject abruptly—”I heard about Khardan.”

Now it was the woman’s dark eyes that lowered, the long lashes brushed the goldtrimmed edge of the veil. Achmed saw Badia’s hand steal to her heart, and he knew now what sorrow she had hidden from him the last time she had visited.

“Badia,” the young man asked hesitantly, swallowing, “do you believe—”

“No!” Badia cried stubbornly. Raising her eyes, she looked directly at Achmed. “The rumor about him is a lie—a lie concocted by that swine Saiyad. Meryem says so. Meryem says Saiyad has hated Khardan ever since the incident with the madman and that he would do anything—”

“Meryem?” Achmed interrupted in amazement. “Wasn’t she captured? The Sultan’s daughter— Surely the Amir would have done away with her!”

“He was going to, but he fell in love with her and couldn’t bear to harm her. He begged her to marry him, but Meryem refused. Don’t you see, Achmed,” Badia said eagerly, “she refused because she knows Khardan is alive!”

“How?”

Achmed was skeptical. Meryem was certainly lovely. The young man could remember watching the lithe, graceful body gliding like the evening breeze through the camp, going about her chores, long lashes modestly downcast until you came close to her then, suddenly, the blue eyes were looking right into your heart. Khardan had fallen headlong into the pool of those blue eyes. Achmed tried to visualize the sternfaced, grayhaired, battlescarred Qannadi floundering in the same water. It seemed impossible. But, Achmed was forced to admit, what a man does in his tent in the night is best covered by the blanket of darkness.

“—she gave Khardan a charm,” Badia was relating.

Achmed scoffed. “Women’s magic! Abdullah’s wife gave him a charm, too. They buried it with what was left of him.”

Badia drew herself to her full height, which brought her about to Achmed’s chin, staring at him with the sharpedged gaze that had often cut the tall Majiid off at the knees. “When you have known a woman, then mock her magic and her love if you dare. But do not do so while you are still a boy!”

Wounded, Achmed lashed out. “Don’t you understand, Badia? If Khardan is alive, then what Saiyad said is true! He fled the battle—a coward! And now he hides in shame—”

Thrusting her arm through the prison gate, Badia slapped him. The woman’s blow, hampered as it was by the iron bars, was neither hard nor painful. Yet it brought bitter tears to the young man’s eyes.

“May Akhran forgive you for speaking of your brother so!” Badia hissed through her veil. Turning on her heel, she walked away.

Achmed sprang at the bars, shaking them with such violence that the guards inside the compound took a step toward him.

“Akhran!” Achmed laughed harshly. “Akhran is like my father—a broken old man, sitting in his tent, mourning a way of life that is as dead as his son! Can’t you understand, woman? Akhran is the past! My father is the past! Khardan is the past!” Tears streaming down his cheeks, Achmed clutched the bars, rattling them and shouting. “I—Achmed! I am the future! Yes, it is true! I am joining the army of the Amir! I—”

A hand caught hold of his shoulder, spun him around.

Achmed saw Sayah’s face, twisted with hatred.

“Traitor!” A fist slammed into Achmed’s jaw, knocking him backward against the bars. The faces of other tribesmen loomed close. Glittering eyes floated on waves of hot breath and pain. A foot drove into his gut. He doubled over in agony, slumping to the ground. Hands grabbed him roughly by the collar of his robes and dragged him to his feet. Another blow across the mouth. A flaring of fire in his groin, burning through his body, forcing a scream from his lips. He was on the ground again, covering his head with his arms, trying to shield himself from the eyes, the hands, the feet, the hatred, the word. . .

“Traitor!”