A.D. 30

CHAPTER ONE





THE DESERT knows no years. Here time is marked by three things alone. By the rising and the falling of the sun each day, to both bless and curse with its fire. By the coming of rain perhaps twice in the winter, if the gods are kind. And by the dying of both young and old at the whim of those same gods.

I stood alone on the stone porch atop the palace Marid, high above the Dumah oasis, as the sun slowly settled behind blood-red sands. My one-year-old son suckled noisily at my breast beneath the white shawl that protected him from the world.

That world was controlled by two kinds: the nomadic peoples known as Bedouin, or Bedu, who roamed the deserts in vast scattered tribes such as the Kalb and the Thamud, and the stationary peoples who lived in large cities and were ruled by kings and emperors. Among these were the Nabataeans, the Jews, the Romans, and the Egyptians.

Two kinds of people, but all lived and died by the same sword.

There was more war than peace throughout the lands, because peace could be had only through oppression or tenuous alliances between tribes and kings, who might become enemies with the shifting of a single wind.

One of those winds was now in the air.

I’d named my son after my father, Rami bin Malik—this before I’d returned to Dumah and become fully aware of the great gulf that separated me from my father. Indeed, the sheikh tolerated my presence only because his wife, Nashquya, had persuaded him. I might be illegitimate, she’d cleverly argued, but my son was still his grandson. She insisted he take us in.

Nasha was not an ordinary wife easily dismissed, for she was the niece of King Aretas of the Nabataeans, who controlled all desert trade routes. Truly, Father owed his great wealth to his alliance with King Aretas, which was sealed through his marriage to Nasha.

Still, I remained a symbol of terrible shame to him. If not for Nasha’s continued affection for me, he would surely have sent me off into the wasteland to die alone and raised my son as his own.

Nasha alone was our savior. She alone loved me.

And now Nasha lay near death in her chambers two levels below the high porch where I stood.

I had been prohibited from seeing her since she’d taken ill, but I could no longer practice restraint. As soon as my son fed and fell asleep, I would lay him in our room and make my way unseen to Nasha’s chambers.

Before me lay the springs and pools of Dumah, which gave life to thousands of date palms stretching along the wadi, a full hour’s walk in length and half as far in breadth. Olive trees too, though far fewer in number. The oasis contained groves of pomegranate shrubs and apple, almond, and lemon trees, many of which had been introduced to the desert by the Nabataeans.

What Dumah did not grow, the caravans provided. Frankincense and myrrh, as valuable as gold to the Egyptians and Romans, who used the sacred incenses to accompany their dead into the afterlife. From India and the Gulf of Persia: rich spices, brilliantly colored cloths and wares. From Mesopotamia: wheat and millet and barley and horses.

All these treasures were carried through the Arabian sands along three trade routes, one of which passed through Dumah at the center of the vast northern desert. Some said that without the waters found in Dumah, Arabia would be half of what it was.

The oasis was indeed the ornament of the deep desert. Dumah was heavy with wealth from a sizable tax levied by my father’s tribe, the Banu Kalb. The caravans came often, sometimes more than a thousand camels long, bearing more riches than the people of any other Bedu tribe might lay eyes on during the full length of their lives.

So much affluence, so much glory, so much honor. And I, the only dark blot in my father’s empire. I was bound by disgrace, and a part of me hated him for it.

Little Rami fussed, hungry for more milk, and I lifted my white shawl to reveal his tender face and eyes, wide with innocence and wonder. His appetite had grown as quickly as his tangled black hair, uncut since birth.

I shifted him to my left, pulled aside my robe, and let him suckle as I lifted my eyes.

As a slave groomed for high service in a Roman house I had been educated, mostly in the ways of language, because the Romans had an appetite for distant lands. By the time I had my first blood, I could speak Arabic, the language of the deep desert; Aramaic, the trade language of Nabataeans and the common language in Palestine; Latin, the language of the Romans; and Greek, commonly spoken in Egypt.

And yet these languages were bitter herbs on my tongue, for even my education displeased my father.

I scanned the horizon. Only three days ago the barren dunes just beyond the oasis had been covered in black tents. The Dumah fair had drawn many thousands of Kalb and Tayy and Asad—all tribes in confederation with my father. A week of great celebration and trading had filled their bellies and laden their camels with enough wares to satisfy them for months to come. They were all gone now, and Dumah was nearly deserted, a town of stray camels that grazed lazily or slept in the sun.