Chapter 8

Achmed wakened and this time managed to hold onto awakening. Until now, consciousness had slithered away from him—a snake sliding through the hands of the dancer in the bazaars. Now he gazed about him, able to bring reality and dreams together, for he vaguely remembered coming to this place, except that he visualized it in his mind as being dark and shadowy, lit with soft candles and peopled with veiled women whispering strange words and touching him with cool hands.

Now it was daylight. The women were gone. There was only an old man, sitting beside him, looking at him with a grave face. Achmed gazed at him and blinked, thinking he might be a trick of his aching head and vanish. He knew the old man, but not from the shadowy dreams. He remembered him from . . . from . . .

“You were in the prison,” Achmed said and was startled at the sound of his own voice. It seemed different, louder.

“Yes.” The old man’s grave expression did not alter.

“I’m not there now, am I?”

“No. You are in the palace of the Amir.”

Achmed looked around. Yes, he had known that. There had been flaring torchlights and strong arms lifting him from the pallet. The Amir’s voice, thick with anger. A ride on horseback and jolting pain. Warm water washing over him, the hands of men— gentle as women—cleansing his battered body.

Then this room. . .

His hand smoothed silken sheets. He was lying on thick, soft mattresses resting on a tall, ornately carved wooden frame. He was clad in clean clothes. The filth had been washed from his body, he smelled the sweet fragrance of rose and orange blossom, mingled with pine and other, more mysterious perfumes.

Looking up, Achmed saw silken drapes swooping gracefully over the tall wooden pillars of the bed to fall in folds around him. The curtains had been pushed aside, to permit him a view of his room—magnificent and beautiful beyond fantasy—and the wizened old man, sitting unmoving beside him.

“You very nearly died,” said the old man. “They sent for the physicians, who did what they could, but it was the magic of Yamina that brought you back.”

“You were one of the prisoners. Why are you here?”

“I was in the prison,” corrected the old man. “I was not one of the prisoners.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was placed in the prison by the gener—the Amir—to watch over you. I am called Hasid and I was Captain of the Body Guard under Abul Qasim Qannadi for twenty years, until I grew too old. I was pensioned honorably and given a house. But I told him when I left—’General,’ I said, ‘there’s going to come a time when you’ll need an old soldier. Not these young men, who think all battles are won with trumpet calls and shouts and dashing here and there. You’ll need someone who knows that sometimes victory comes only by stealth and long waiting and keeping the mouth shut.’ And so he did.” Hasid nodded gravely. “So he did.”

“You went into prison. . . voluntarily?” Achmed sat up in his bed, staring at the old soldier in amazement. “But—they beat you!”

“Hah!” Hasid looked amused. “Call that a beating? From those dogs? My mother gave me worse, to say nothing of my sergeant. Now there was a man who could lay it on! Broke three of my ribs once,” the old soldier said, shaking his head in admiration, “for drinking on watch. ‘Next time, Hasid,’ the sergeant told me, helping me to my feet, ‘I’ll break your skull.’ But there wasn’t a next time. I learned my lesson.”

Achmed paled. Memory leaped out at him. The angry, frightened faces, the flailing fists and feet, punching and kicking . . .

“They hate me! They tried to kill me!”

“Of course! What do you expect? But not for the reason you think. You spoke the truth, and it was the truth they were trying to beat down—not you. I know. I’ve seen it before. There isn’t much,” Hasid said on reflection, scratching himself beneath his rags, “that I haven’t seen.”

“What happened to them?” Achmed asked in a strained voice.

“The Amir released them.”

“What?” Achmed stared. “Freed?”

“He opened the prison gates wide. Sent them slinking back out into the streets, crawling on their bellies like whipped curs.”

Lying on your master’s grave. . .

“Why is he doing this?” Achmed muttered, restlessly shoving aside the silken sheets.

“He’s smart, the Amir. Let them go. He’s keeping their mothers, their wives, their families here in the city. They can go home to them—if they choose—or they can make their way across the desert and find that their tribe is nothing but a few old men, beating their toothless gums, yammering about a God who no longer cares—”

Achmed cringed. “I understand that!” he said hurriedly. Glancing at the luxury and finery about him, he gestured. “I meant why is the general doing this. You. . . watching over me. Bringing me here. Saving my life. . . All to train horses.” His face grew dark with suspicion. “I don’t believe it.”

“You believed it in prison.”

“In that pit of Sul, it made sense. Maybe because I wanted it to.” Achmed tossed the blankets aside and swung his bare legs over the edge of the mattress. Ignoring the sharp pain in his head, he struggled to rise. “I see it now. He’s been lying to me. Maybe he’s using me, holding me hostage.” A sudden dizziness assailed him. Pausing, he put his hand to his head, fighting it off. “Where are my clothes?” he demanded groggily.

“Hostage? And what ransom would your father pay? He has nothing left.”

Achmed closed his eyes to keep the room from spinning. A bitter taste filled his mouth; he was afraid he would be sick.

Nothing left. Not even a son. . . .

Cold water splashed in his face. Gasping, Achmed opened his eyes, staring at Hasid.

“Why—” he sputtered.

“Thought you were going to faint.” Hasid returned the water carafe to a nearby table. “Feel better?”

A nod was all Achmed could manage.

“Then get dressed,” the old soldier ordered. “Your old clothes have been burned, as mine will be once I can get rid of them.” He scratched himself again. “There are your new ones.”

Wiping his dripping face, Achmed glanced at the foot of his bed to see a simple white cotton caftan lying there, not unlike that which Qannadi himself wore.

“I can’t tell you why he’s doing this—not in words. That would be betraying a friend’s trust. But, if you feel up to walking a bit,” Hasid continued, “I’ve got something to show you that might answer your questions”—he peered at the young man out of the comer of his eye—”if you’re as smart as he says you are, that is.”

Wordlessly, moving slowly and carefully to avoid jarring his aching head, Achmed drew on soft undergarments, then the caftan. He hoped that they wouldn’t have to walk far. Despite the magical healing, his legs felt weak and wobbly as a newborn colt’s.

“Come on!” Hasid prodded him in the ribs. “I marched five miles once on a broken ankle, and no woman’s hands tended me either!”

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Achmed followed the old soldier across the room that was as large as Majiid’s tent. Carpets of intricate and delicate weave covered the floor, their shimmering colors so beautiful that it seemed a desecration to walk on them. Lacquered wood furniture, decorated with gold leaf and adorned with objects rare and lovely, stood beside low sofas whose overstuffed, silken cushions invited the young man to sink down and lose himself amid their embroidered leaves and flowers. Feeling clumsy and awkward, fearful of knocking some precious vase to the floor, Achmed tried to imagine walking on a broken ankle. Finally, he decided the old man was lying. Later, when Achmed asked the Amir if Hasid’s claim was true, Qannadi grinned. Hasid was lying. It hadn’t been five miles he walked. It had been ten.

Approaching a window, the old soldier pressed his face against the glass and indicated that Achmed was to do the same. The room stood on the ground floor of the palace. The windows opened onto the lush garden through which he and Khardan had escaped only months ago. The bright sunlight sent a stabbing throb through his eyeballs, memories sent a pain through his heart. Achmed couldn’t see anything for long moments.

“Well?” Hasid prodded him again.

“I—I can’t. . . That is, what am I—”

“There, the man right across from us. By that fountain.”

Blinking his eyes rapidly, not daring to wipe his hand across them for fear of rousing Hasid’s contempt, Achmed at last focused on a man standing not five feet from them, tossing grain to several peacocks that had gathered around him.

The sight of the man was interesting enough to dry Achmed’s tears and make him forget the pain of both body and soul. The man was young—perhaps twentyfive—tall and slender with skin as white as the marble fountains. A turban swathed his head, its silken fabric glittering with jewels and golden baubles. His clothing was equally sumptuous. Fullcut silken pantalons in colors of blues and greens and gold rippled about his legs as he moved among the peacocks. A golden sash encircled his slim waist, golden shoes with turnedup toes graced his feet. A billowing sleeved shirt, open at the throat, was covered by a vest made of golden fabric decorated with green embroidered curlicues and knots, finished off by a row of silken fringe that swung when he made the slightest move.

The man’s eyelids were painted green and outlined in kohl. Jewels sparkled on the fingers that tossed the grain to the birds, gold dangled from his earlobes.

Achmed gasped. He had never seen anyone so truly magnificent. “Is that the Emperor?”

“Hah!” Hasid began to wheeze with laughter, causing the man outside to turn his head and glance at them with disapprobation. Brushing the grain from his hands, he walked away, moving past the splashing fountain with studied grace and elegance, the peacocks walking with mincing step behind him.

“The Emperor!” Hasid struggled to catch his breath. “If the Emperor came, where do you think we’d be, boy? Turned out in the streets, most likely. This place wouldn’t be big enough to hold all his wives, let alone his wazirs and priests and grandees and scribes and slaves and cupbearers and platebearers and footwashers and asslickers that surround him from the moment he wakes up in the morning to when he enters one of his hundred bedrooms in the night. The Emperor!” The old soldier chuckled, shaking his head.

“Then who is it?” Achmed demanded irritably, feeling the pounding in his head once more.

“The answer to your question.” Hasid eyed him shrewdly. “The eldest son of Abul Qasim Qannadi.”

Achmed gaped. Turning to look outside, he saw the man pluck an orchid and begin ripping the petals from it in bored fashion, tossing them idly at the birds. “He was raised in the Emperor’s court and lives in the palace in Khandar. Yamina, his mother, is one of the Emperor’s sisters, and she saw to it that her son had all the advantages of being brought up in the royal household. Qannadi rarely saw the boy.” Hasid shrugged. “His own fault, perhaps. He was always away somewhere, conquering more cities in the Emperor’s name. He sent for his son a month ago, to teach him the art of warfare. He was going to take him south. His son said he would be honored to attend his father, but he would need a covered litter in which to travel since he couldn’t for the life of him ride a horse and he dare not remain out in the sun long—it would ruin his complexion—and was it possible to bring several of his own friends, as he could not stand to be in the company of vulgar soldiers, and he wanted his own personal physician as well since it was quite likely that he would faint at the sight of blood.

“The young man,” Hasid added dryly, “is returning to Khandar tomorrow.”

Achmed’s breath was gone from his body. He felt like the man who commanded his djinn to bring him a silver ball and found himself holding the gleaming moon. As the man said to the djinn, “It is beautiful and of exceeding value, but I’m not certain what to do with it.” The garden dissolved before the youth’s eyes. Gazing out the window, he did not see the ornamental trees and the hanging orchids and the blood red roses. He saw the desert—the vast, empty dunes beneath a vast, empty sky; the tall tasseled grass bending in the everlasting wind; the scraggly palms clinging to life around a bracken puddle of water; the shriveled, stinking plant whose name now held for the young man a terrible, bitter irony—the Rose of the Prophet.

“You were right,” Hasid said softly. “This has nothing to do with the training of horses, Qannadi has asked to see you. Will you come to him?”

Achmed turned away from the window. “Yes,” he said, “I will come.”