“The gods have already heard my final request by bringing my sister to my side,” she said.
“Stop!” I said. “Your fever is speaking. You are queen of this desert, wife of the sheikh, who commands a hundred thousand camels and rules all the Kalb who look toward Dumah!”
“I am weak and eaten with worms.”
“You are in the line of Aretas, whose wealth is coveted by all of Rome and Palestine and Egypt and Arabia. You are Nashquya, forever my queen!”
At this, Nasha’s face went flat and she stared at me with grave resolve. When she finally spoke, her voice was contained.
“No, Maviah. It is you who will one day rule this vast kingdom at the behest of the heavens. It is written already.”
She was mad with illness, and her shift in disposition frightened me.
“I saw it when you first came to us,” she said. “There isn’t a woman in all of Arabia save the queens of old who carries herself like you. None so beautiful as you. None so commanding of life.”
What could I say to her rambling? She couldn’t know that her words mocked me, a woman drowning in the blood of dishonor.
“You must rest,” I managed.
But she only tightened her grasp on my arm.
“Take your son away, Maviah! Flee with him before the Nabataeans dash his head on the rocks. Flee Dumah and save your son.”
“My son is Rami’s son!” I jerked my arm away, horrified by her words. “My son is safe with my father!”
“Your father’s alliance with the Nabataeans is bound by my life,” she said. “I am under Rami’s care. Do you think King Aretas will only shrug if I die? Rami has defiled the gods.”
“He’s offended which god?”
“Am I a god to know? But I would not be ill if he had not.” So it was said—the gods made their displeasure known. “Aretas will show his outrage for all to see, so that his image remains unshakable before all people.”
“A hundred thousand Kalb serve Rami,” I said, desperate to denounce her fear, for it was also my own.
“Only because of his alliance with Aretas,” she said plainly. “If I die and Aretas withdraws his support, I fear for Rami.”
Any honor that I might wrestle from this life came only from my father, the greatest of all sheikhs, who could never fail. My only purpose was to win his approval by honoring him—this was the way of all Bedu daughters. If his power in the desert was compromised, I would become worthless.
“He has deserted the old ways,” Nasha whispered. “He’s not as strong as he once was.”
The Bedu are a nomadic people, masters of the desert, free to couch camel and tent in any quarter or grazing land. They are subject to none but other Bedu who might desire the same lands. It has always been so, since before the time of Abraham and his son Ishmael, the ancient father of the Bedu in northern Arabia.
In the true Bedu mind, a stationary life marks the end of the Bedu way. Mobility is essential to survival in such a vast wasteland. Indeed, among many tribes, the mere building of any permanent structure is punishable by death.
In taking control of Dumah, a city built of squared stone walls and edifices such as the palace Marid, a fortress unto itself, Rami and his subjects had undermined the sacred Bedu way, though the wealth brought by this indiscretion blinded most men.
I knew as much, but hearing Nasha’s conviction, fear welled up within me. I wiped her forehead with the cool cloth again.
“Rest now. You must sleep.”
Nasha sagged into the pillows and closed her eyes. “Pray to Al-Uzza,” she whispered after a moment. “Pray to Dushares. Pray to Al-Lat. Pray to yourself to save us all.”
And then she stilled, breathing deeply.
“Nasha?”
She made no response. I drew loose strands of hair from her face.
“Nasha, dear Nasha, I will pray,” I whispered.
She lay unmoving, perhaps asleep.
“I swear I will pray.”
“Maviah,” she whispered.
I stared at her face, ashen but at peace.
“Nasha?”
And then she whispered again.
“Maviah…”
They were the last words I would hear Nashquya of the Nabataeans, wife to my father and sister to me, speak in this life.
CHAPTER TWO
IT IS SAID among the Bedu that there are ghouls in the desert—shape-shifting demons that assume the guise of creatures, particularly hyenas, and lure unwary travelers into the sands to slay and devour them. Also nasnas, monsters made of half a human head, one leg, and one arm. They hunt people, hopping with great agility. And jinn, some of which are evil spirits, such as marids, who can grant a man’s wishes, yet compel him to do their bidding in devious matters.