The Diviner by Melanie Rawn Page B

wives, an unwed daughter, and six squalling toddlers were all happy to be going home to civilization.
    â€œBayyid Qarhia is not a great city, not like Beit Za’ara,” said the father, “but it’s certainly better than the squalor of my uncle’s tents! Of course,” he laughed, “my uncle would slit his own throat before he’d set foot in any town.”
    Azzad surmised that this Beit Za’ara was the largest community in this man’s experience. Two hundred inhabitants at the most, he decided. In Dayira Azreyq there lived two hundred times that number.
    But where there was a town, there was money. Probably not a lot of money, but enough to get him started. Precisely what he intended to start was as yet unclear. But from the way the young men eyed Khamsin with that combination of fascination and wariness that Azzad was coming to expect, it would have something to do with the stallion.
    The women and children rode in a large wagon drawn by two of those monstrous horses. Azzad could not believe that there was so little contact with eastern lands that Khamsin’s breed was unknown to them. But the Shagara had never heard of Rimmal Madar, just as Azzad had never heard of the Shagara. Though nothing more formidable than The Steeps lay between the two lands, he had begun to think that there were reasons why the peoples had never mingled. These possible reasons occupied his thoughts for long stretches of the road, and eventually he thought he might have an answer. If the sheyqas had an agreement with their desert-dwelling cousins that The Steeps were the border, none would pass through that were not approved. The Ammarad would keep to their side out of habit, preference, and understanding with their royal kin. And they would keep everyone else out of Rimmal Madar, as well.
    Further, Azzad speculated, the sheyqas would not wish the Geysh Dushann generally known—or, indeed, known at all. What better assassins than one’s own blood relations, whom nobody had ever even heard of? And Azzad was abruptly, bitterly certain that just such assassins had advised Nizzira on which poison to use on the al-Ma’aliq men and where to set the fires at Beit Ma’aliq.
    Dragging his mind from the past, he patted Khamsin’s neck and compared him point by point with the huge desert horses. They were taller, broader, tougher, stronger. Logic dictated that they must be able to survive long periods without much food or water. Yet when they did feed, they must devour half a man’s monthly earnings. They were hardier than Khamsin, but slower; more powerful, but more expensive; and the evil gleam in their eyes boded ill for those who trained them.
    Old ways died hard; even if lighter, swifter, sweeter-tempered horses were available, few would wish to exchange the wagon for the saddle. A horse that could not be placed between shafts was no good as a horse. The idea that Azzad could convince them otherwise was ludicrous, and he knew it. Expert rider though he was, he wouldn’t have tried to sit one of these monsters if his life depended on it. Only think, he told himself wryly, of the insult to Khamsin! And yet he wondered, watching the men watch Khamsin, if he was in danger of losing his only asset to thieves in the night.
    The family was not wealthy. They rented a stall in Bayyid Qarhia’s zouq, selling blankets and cloaks woven by their tribal relatives. But something else besides gathering new goods had happened on this trip. To judge by the red-rimmed eyes of the daughter and her mother’s black anger whenever she addressed her—as “La’a-tzawaq,” unwed—there had been an unsuccessful attempt to find her a husband. To Azzad’s exacting eye, the girl’s looks were minimal, her feminine allure negligible, and her intelligence doubtful. Possessing one of these three she might have made a match, even at her age—at least nineteen—but lacking any,