The Diviner by Melanie Rawn Page B

stubbornly.
    â€œNo,” Fadhil agreed. “No guard.”
    â€œThen how—?”
    â€œHe wears the ways of the Abb Shagara at his heart. They are all the protection he needs.”
    Sheyqa Nizzira sent to the winter camp of her kinsmen, the Ammarad, her two eldest sons, three of the Qoundi Ammar, and a wagon of gifts. But so long ago had her foremothers left the desert that she had no notion of what was valued by the ancestral tribe. The Ammarad stared as the Qoundi Ammar unloaded fine wooden tables inlaid with marble, silken tapestries, and great pottery vessels filled with honey and wine and oil.
    Abb Ammarad informed the Sheyqa’s sons that the gifts were unnecessary. Azzad al-Ma’aliq would be hunted down and killed for the honor of their tribe. Then he commanded a feast, which was laid out on the tapestries and used up much of the honey and oil and all of the wine. And during the feast, when he admired the fine, fast horses of the Sheyqa, the sons instantly comprehended. Thus it was that one proud sheyqir and three even prouder Qoundi Ammar rode back to Dayira Azreyq on unsaddled brown donkeys.
    The Ammarad had use of the Sheyqa’s horses for less than a season, and their insistence that the mare ridden by one of her sons be included in the “gift” was a tragic error. Two stallions died in battle over
    the Ammarad mare, one of the bite of a poisonous snake. Such was the size of the half-Ammarad foal inside her that the mare was ripped apart, and her get died with her.
    The soldiers of the Qoundi Ammar—forced by the Sheyqa’s sons to ride home on donkeys, deprived of the horses that were more beloved than their wives—never forgave the loss and the insult.
    Â 
    â€”FERRHAN MUALEEF, Deeds of Il-Kadiri, 654

3

    T he following morning Azzad was allowed outside. He immediately went to see Khamsin. Along the way, he got his first good look at the Shagara. They were a handsome, black-eyed people, slim and long-legged, dressed in various desert shades of fawn and ivory and cream. But not all of them were Shagara by birth, or at least not wholly Shagara; Azzad was able to distinguish outsiders very easily by their skin tone. The merciless sun did not darken the Shagara; they looked as if gilded, and the contrast of black eyes and black hair with golden skin was fascinating.
    He seemed to fascinate them as well. Some glanced sidelong, others openly stared, but no one ignored him. When he passed by, children stopped playing, and whispered and giggled and pointed—until the old men watching them scolded their rudeness. The Shagara went about their tasks of fetching water and cooking, braiding new ropes and mending boots and suchlike with quiet efficiency. It was altogether unlike the raucous streets of Dayira Azreyq, where men did nothing without discussion, speculation, argument, and commentary—usually at the top of their lungs.
    The one familiarity was unexpected: the sound of hammers working metal, just as in Zoqalo Zaffiha at home. Sure enough, Fadhil led him around a cluster of tents to workshops set up beneath wool awnings. Thirty or so men sat cross-legged in the shade, each whispering under his breath, pounding designs into brass, copper, and tin. Some of the men were as ancient as Chal Kabir; others were Fadhil’s age. The polished metal bowls, goblets, plates, armbands, finger rings, earrings, and pendants—dazzling even in the shadows of the awning—made Azzad blink. Nearby, beneath another pale woolen roof, a group of boys about fourteen years old watched a very old woman trace a symbol into a large clay tablet propped on a stand so all could see.
    â€œHere you see the talishann for ‘wealth of sheep.’ Note its difference from that for ‘wealth of sons’—and remember that a man will not be pleased if his ewes bear dozens of woolly lambs when he is expecting his wife to have lots of little boys!”
    The children laughed