Sahayl laughed, cutting off Isra's words. "You have no patience, desert rose. That is why he always bests you."
"He's cheating," Isra said adamantly. "Now come distract him."
"As you wish," Sahayl said, smiling softly as Isra leaned up to kiss him, still unable to believe that this man was his to keep. Not so long ago they'd been enemies…would he someday wake up and find they still were?
Isra tugged him out of the room, wrapping an arm around his waist, fingers idly tracing along his side. "You don't speak much about your mother. She gave you those curls, and she was kind…"
"My mother…" Sahayl looked out across the desert as they walked down a covered walkway toward the wing where his rooms were located. "Her mother was captured by us in a raid…Fox, I believe. She eventually married a Ghost and gave birth to my mother, who grew up surrounded by her own mother's bitterness. Understandable, of course…" Raids were not as common as they had been, but they were necessary. Ghost had lost as many women and children as it had gained. "It drove her, I guess, to be exactly opposite. Quiet, accommodating, accepting…willing to tolerate anything to avoid unhappiness. Because she was born into an old family of good standing - Kahlil is her nephew, actually - it was arranged that she would marry my father.
"She endured my father's brutality far longer than I…he did not…start on me until I was about eleven, and that only because I refused to 'put Wafai in his place' as my father said I should, after we argued. Over what, I no longer remember. It was then my father started believing me too soft…just a few years later my mother finally gave up. Between her parents and her marriage, she simply couldn't bear it anymore…" He finally braved a look at Isra, recognizing the stubborn set to his jaw, the way those blue, blue eyes flared as he fought not to say what he was thinking. "You think my mother was weak," he said for Isra.
Isra shrugged. "I don't think she should have left you alone." He made a face. "On the positive side, at least she chose a respectable way out. My mother is somewhere in the west playing Desert whore - though I suppose she could be dead by this point." His face hardened briefly.
"Do you really not care about your parents, desert rose?"
"No," Isra said firmly, "I don't. They didn't care about me, why should I care about them?
Everything they should have done, my honored uncle and aunt did instead. My mother could have stayed and raised me; the Tribe was willing to give her another chance. She ran off to find another pretty face. My father apparently jumped from bed to bed. What should I care about?
Sahayl chuckled. "So decisive, desert rose. I wish my mind was as easily made up."
Isra snorted. "Stop thinking so much."
"Saa, but too much thinking is why I've come closer to beating Shihab at taaki than you or Bahadur."
"He cheats!" Isra said, all but stamping his foot.
"Do not!" Shihab bellowed from the table as Isra and Sahayl stepped inside. "It's not my fault you're hopeless at anything requiring thought."
"Be quiet or I'll give you a fresh set of bruises."
Sahayl shared a brief look with Bahadur, then held Isra tight to keep him from going after Shihab, who was asking for it, really, but Sahayl could see by the tight lines of his face and the way he held himself that Shihab was still in a great deal of pain. "You should be resting, shadowfire, not enraging Isra."
"But it's my favorite thing to do," Shihab said. "I'll go rest if you'll play a game with me…after tomorrow I'll be here all alone, you know. Isra will be wreaking havoc with Falcon, Sahayl and Bahadur get to kick around a few heathens…and I'll be all alone with my taaki board…"
"Brat," Isra said, but obediently took his seat.
Sahayl took his own seat, directly across from Shihab, with Isra to his right and Bahadur to his left, and simply sat quietly and smiled as he listened to the other three bicker and talk, somber mood fading away.
Twenty Two
"Isra!" A soldier ran up to him, not trying very hard to hide a grin. "The Falcon Sheik requests that you dine with him this evening."
"He requests that I dine with him?" Isra glared at his uncle’s tent. "You can tell my honored uncle that he’s not nearly as funny as he thinks he is." He rolled his eyes. "Never mind, I’ll tell him myself. Stop laughing or you’ll be eating sand."
"Yes, Isra," the soldier said, and smothering a laugh he turned and ran off.
Isra handed his horse off to the nearby handler – who was also trying not to laugh – and stalked across camp to his uncle’s tent, ignoring the guards outside and striding right inside.
"Having fun at my expense, are we?" He paused only to wash his hands and arms in the bowl just inside the entrance, then sat down heavily at the table, glaring at Jabbar.
Jabbar chuckled. "Well, you’ve moved so high up in the world now, nephew, I thought perhaps I should ask politely for your company."
"I can’t imagine why you think you’re so amusing," Isra groused, ignoring his uncle in favor of examining the food. All manner of dishes had been arranged – spicy meat, steamed vegetables, half a dozen kinds of pastries, some savory, some sweet. His stomach growled.
"You must really want something." He helped himself to the carafe of wine, drinking one dishful quickly and pouring a second to drink more slowly.
"Only an explanation, nephew, and believe it or not – I have been worried about you. When you left, I was not certain you would return, and I had no men to spare to bring you back."
Isra winced, chastened. "I am sorry, honored uncle. I thought only of trying to find help…"
"You certainly found it," Jabbar replied, sitting back and picking up his own wine dish, "and more besides, it would seem."
"So it would seem," Isra agreed, forcing himself not to fidget under Jabbar’s stare as he had so often growing up.
Jabbar laughed outright. "You are not getting out of this, Isra. I want to know how you went from hating the Ghost Sheik to becoming the Sandstorm Prince’s concubine."
Isra could feel his cheeks heating, something only his uncle could ever do to him. "Only the Lady truly understands anything. I knew I should have refused to come here in Shihab’s place." He finished his wine and poured more, then began to pick at the nearest tray of pastries – these stuffed with lamb, knowing his uncle.
"When I said I hoped you would find reason to stop hating, I certainly did not have this in mind, nephew. Leave it to you to find the most unique way to learn a lesson." His eyes sparkled with mirth as he smiled fondly at Isra. "Now tell me or I’ll invite my wife to this meal as well."
"That’s cheating!" Isra said, all but throwing his wine dish down on the table. "Don’t you dare!
It’s none of her business." He shuddered at the thought of what precisely his aunt would manage to get out of him. No matter how hard he tried, how well he thought he knew all her tricks…every single time she got everything she wanted out of him.
The woman was evil.
Jabbar snickered. "Then tell. What first changed your mind, hmm, nephew?"
Isra poured more wine, wishing he could just skip the dish and drink straight from the carafe
– or for something stronger than Dark Spice. Desert wine, potent as it could be, was nowhere near strong enough for having to confess everything to his uncle.
Who would tell his aunt.
Who would tell the whole camp.
Lady bury them all in the Sands.
"I have been waiting many years to see this change in you, nephew," Jabbar prodded.
Isra merely glared mutinously. "My personal life is none of your business."
"He is handsome," Jabbar goaded. "I saw Sheik Hashim’s face only a few times…not a pleasant fellow."
"At least he didn’t nearly outweigh his horse," Isra retorted.
Jabbar threw his head back and laughed. "Insults will not distract me, nephew. I am having far too much fun with you."
"Yes, I can see that," Isra said sourly. He nibbled at a bit of fruit while Jabbar laughed, contemplating whether to leave or throw all the food at his honored uncle first.
"If you throw something at me, Isra, I will leave you to your aunt’s devices. As I was saying ---
the Prince is quite handsome. He must get his looks from his mother."
Isra shrugged and snagged another lamb-stuffed pastry, struggling not to think about Sahayl
– whom he suddenly realized he missed. Badly. Sahayl had gotten his hair from his mother, no doubt the rest had come from her as well. Certainly none of Hashim’s vile personality was in his son.
Jabbar’s smug voice broke into his thoughts. "Mind wandering, Isra?"
"I’m leaving," Isra said, disgusted. He stormed to his feet. "I didn’t come along on this trip to be laughed at for the duration of it. We have work to do, and I am supposed to be scouting, not sitting here listening to you mock me for having come to care about Sahayl!"
"Sit down!" Jabbar’s voice cracked like a whip. Isra sat. "You will forgive your uncle his teasing, Isra. As I said, when last I saw you, you were angry with everyone in the Desert –
including me. Your opinion then was that Ghost needed to die – especially the Ghost Amir. I despaired of ever getting through to you. Now you sit across from me the concubine of our new Desert Prince, and by your own admission have come to care about a man you wanted to kill. I am entitled to tease you – and you will tolerate it in good grace as all children should."
Isra frowned at the table. "There must have been more days than I could ever count where you wanted to beat me senseless."
Jabbar lifted one brow at the strange statement, but went along with it. "Isra, not a day goes by when a parent does not want to beat sense into his child."
"Honored Uncle.—" Isra jerked his head up in surprise.
"I do consider you my own, Isra. Surely you know that after all this time."
Isra nodded, but did not speak, lowering his gaze back to the table.
"As I was saying – yes, there have been times when I wanted to knock some sense into that head of yours. There have been many days where I wanted to beat it into your cousins, and more still I wanted to wring my wife’s neck. Never do I want to know the number of times she has contemplated poisoning my food." Jabbar chuckled softly. "However, confining you to your tent proved far more effective a means of punishment, and you know I would never harm you. Why do you say such strange things?"
Isra fiddled with his wine dish a moment, then finally looked up again. "This is not common knowledge, Uncle, and he would not want anyone to know who did not need to…but you asked when my mind changed…"
Jabbar’s brow furrowed in sudden concern.
"It started to change the day we were attacked by the men attempting to impersonate Ghost…before that fight, when I ran off after you and I argued. I encountered Sahayl in an oasis…"
"Yes," Jabbar said slowly, "I remember. You said he had been beaten…" His eyes widened slightly as comprehension dawned.
Isra nodded, barely noticing, attention only for his memories, the night that had changed everything – and not so very long ago. "I figured out later, in Tavamara, that Hashim had been the one to beat him. That he’d been doing it since Sahayl was a boy."
"By the Lady," Jabbar said softly. "I have come to know him, as well as anyone can in a matter of several busy days…that does much to explain why a man his age acts more like one of my age."
"There were other reasons, but that was the main one," Isra said, and finally picked up his wine again.
Jabbar levity returned with a smirk. "Yes, I’m sure there were."
"That’s none of your business," Isra muttered, hating the way his cheeks burned. "Why are you so determined to pry into what I do in bed, honored uncle?" He tossed Jabbar a smirk of his own. "Looking for ideas?"
"Impertinent!" Jabbar said, laughing hard.
Isra fought a laugh. "Anything else you’d like to know, uncle?"
"I should like to have a word with young ‘Simon’ someday," Jabbar replied dryly.
"I knew he was up to something, but I never asked what," Isra replied, "and as much as I wish I could, I cannot tell you what I know."
Jabbar waved the words away. "Of course, of course." He stroked his beard. "I’m not yet finished with you, but I will relent for a time. Let us discuss what we’ll be doing in these coming days." He set out a copy of the map with which Sahayl had entrusted him. "I still cannot believe the Prince has such a thing as this in his possession…" He shook his head.
"We are planning to try and find these Tribes here. They are the most remote in this region, about as far from any border as it is possible to be, so hopefully they will not have been affected. Ideally we will persuade them to the Prince’s side…"
"You agreed to the whole Prince thing with surprising ease," Isra interrupted. "I did not think you’d be so amenable to such a tactic, especially when you refused to seek help…"
"I refused help, Isra, because by that point it was clear we could not trust even those we have called allies for years now. The risk you took…under ordinary circumstance, nephew, I would have been hard pressed to turn away the insistence that I kick you out of Falcon."
Isra nodded. "I knew that when I left."
"Leave it to you, nephew, to return in a position where no one can touch you…figuratively and literally." Jabbar smirked.
Isra rolled his eyes. "Here we go again. I find your interest in my love life disturbing, honored uncle."
"I’m not interested in your romance, Isra, except insofar as I am enjoying seeing how far and fast you’ve fallen." Jabbar poured himself more wine, then reached across the table to refill Isra’s dish. "Now, let us turn to business for a time."
"Yes, honored uncle," Isra replied, grateful to have the discussion over with – for now. "What are your plans?"
Jabbar sat back and sipped at his wine. "Noor and I spoke at length before I called you for dinner. Combing the entire desert would take months. We do not have months. Of the Tribes marked on the map with which the Prince trusted us, Noor and I have picked out half a dozen that are most likely to join us without too much trouble. They, hopefully, will branch out to others. Of those six, three are Tribes known in passing to either Falcon or Ghost, which will help. Even with all that, however, it will still take too long to find them all, talk, and bring them to the Broken Palace. So we have decided to break into three groups, and I’m—"