“We lost four more camels last night, Colonel,” Paul reported. Even in the dim light of the tent, he could see the colonel’s eyes flash in anger. Visiting the colonel even on minor business was inevitably the least pleasant task of an officer’s day. His rages were frightening.
“And what is it you would like me to do about it, Lieutenant? Is there something about dead camels you can’t handle?”
“No, sir, of course not. I just thought you’d like to know. They’ve already been butchered. That makes a total of thirty-two so far.”
“You try my patience, deVries. I can count as well as the next man.”
“Yes, sir.”
“See to it the guides don’t sell the meat to a passing caravan. They probably poisoned the camels to make a few sous.” The colonel was lying down, trying to still the fires of sciatica that blazed down his backside. He stiffened. “Get Brame,” he gasped.
Paul found the colonel’s batman, who sighed at the summons. “Another shot,” he muttered. It was an open secret now among the officers. The colonel didn’t trust his officers, or his guides, or anyone else.
The only companion he trusted was morphine.
Such secrets could be kept in France, or even in Wargla. But on a journey spent in close quarters they withered quickly. When the caravan was moving Flatters rode on his great white camel, alone out in front of the expedition. He sat stiffly, in agony, and rejected company. When they made camp he rarely emerged from his tent. His moods swung like the temperature, from fire to ice. He could be kind or ferocious. Decisions seemed difficult for him. Simple things that should take little thought seemed to tie him in knots. His eyes were often glazed, his look distracted. He wandered alone among the dunes and the rocks, shuffling painfully and muttering. He paid scant attention when Paul or the other officers spoke to him.
It was Remy who had broached the unbroachable with Paul, his superior officer. Only the bond between them kept Paul from reprimanding him, that and the fact that Remy had echoed his own fears.
“The colonel should have stayed in Paris,” Remy growled, watching as Brame entered the colonel’s tent. “I don’t know what made him try this with a bad back. He’s obviously got a strong will, but the morphine could get us all killed.”
Paul nodded grimly. “He’s off his mind half the time, and impossible the rest.”
“Yesterday he told me three different times in the space of an hour to have his camel saddled, and then later on he didn’t remember,” Remy said. “I heard him ask Brame who’d done it. Then he lost his journal, the one he scribbles in all night. He raised hell about it. Turned everything upside down in his tent. He accused Brame of hiding it. It was in his saddle pack all the time.”
Reluctantly, Paul was coming to the realization that the colonel was unfit for duty. “The rest of us will just have to make up for him.” After the colonel the senior officer was Captain Masson. Lieutenant Dianous, closest to Paul in rank, was cold but efficient. Pobeguin and Dennery were NCOs whose desert experience was vast. And, of course, there was Remy Cavour, who knew nothing of the Sahara but was a battle-hardened soldier with good instincts.
“I’ve had to do that before,” Remy said. “A bad business. It’s like expecting the body to carry on after the guillotine’s done its work.”
By late January the expedition was hundreds of kilometers to the south of Wargla. The engineers carried on their survey work, making endless notes about the terrain. At night they hunched over their tables and by lantern light fixed their position on the detailed maps they were preparing.
They passed the gorge of Amguid, with still no sign or word from the Tuareg, into whose country they were passing without permission. The silence of the Tuareg bred superstition and fear. At night the Shamba were jumpy, the tirailleurs wary. Wild shots were fired at ghosts and fears. When they camped near the dunes and the wind blew, a strange humming could be heard in the darkness among the distant sands. “It is the laughter of the djenoum,” the Shamba said. “The howling of the Angel of Death.” The floor of the desert in front of them was filled with tracks, suggesting that a large group of riders preceded them. Speculation ran rampant. “It’s the Tuareg,” Remy muttered. “Why don’t they show themselves? They’re toying with us.”
Weeks had passed that way. The guides, Iforass Tuareg who had been hired in Wargla, kept to themselves. They lived far to the southwest, between Gao and Timbuktu, and were normally on friendly terms with the Hoggar Tuareg. They were reclusive, almost sullen, and even they feared treachery. At the wells of El Hadjadj the master of a caravan passing in the opposite direction shook his finger at the colonel. “Ahitagel views all foreigners with hatred, and your mission with distrust,” he said. “It is the course of wisdom to return the way you came.”
“Nonsense,” the colonel told his officers that night, “message after message has reassured the amenokal that we mean no harm. He will let us pass. We have come too far for any other outcome. We will pass.”
“The tirailleurs’ morale is low, Colonel,” said Captain Masson. “Several have been reprimanded for arguing that we turn back—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” shrieked the colonel, his face shaking with fury. “To the devil with their morale! You keep their filthy tongues in check! You will shoot any man who talks this way. Do you hear me?” he shouted at his officers. “Do you hear me?”
Two days later the amenokal’s answer came on the heels of the eight Iforass Tuareg guides. Normally they rode far in front of the expedition, obscure flecks on the horizon. Captain Masson saw something and drew up his mount. He shaded his eyes, peering forward. The guides were no longer distant, but were riding toward him at a fast trot, all eight of them, quickly growing larger as they approached. They had never done such a thing. The colonel was just catching up. The other officers, Dianous and deVries, pulled alongside.
“It seems,” said Masson, peering through field glasses, “that we are about to meet the amenokal. Thirty-two, heavily armed. Spears, shields, swords. Some rifles, I think. I can’t tell what else.” Behind the guides, much closer now, was a ghostly tall line of blue and gold. From the distance they looked unreal and otherworldly, the superheated air twisting and weaving their figures. The captain handed the glasses to Colonel Flatters.
“Order the tirailleurs abreast, Captain. Arms sheathed. Draw in the caravan.”
“Dianous, deVries, see to it.”
Pulses racing, the two lieutenants moved at once, passing orders to Cavour, Dennery, and Pobeguin, the five of them then riding back through the long column of men and animals, shouting instructions, pulling the caravan into order. Word of the approaching Tuareg flashed like lightning up and down the line. The riflemen formed a line to the rear of the officers, perpendicular to the long caravan behind them, still engaged in the bedlam of trying to close ranks. The camel tenders bullied the pack animals into a tight group behind the tirailleurs, their voices cursing and shouting as they sought quick order. It was a noisy formation, but carried out quickly. For months they had talked of little else but the men who now rode toward them. Now that they were to meet face-to-face, they wasted no time.
The line of Tuareg was ten meters from the French when a man riding near the right side halted. The others followed suit, and the line stopped as if one. The shroud of its dust nearly swallowed the group from view.
Paul watched carefully as the two formations settled to order. Only the camels moved, adjusting their positions, snorting and stretching their necks. The men atop them on both sides sat motionless, studying their opposing numbers. The dust dissipated at last, and the camels settled down. And then there was silence.
The colonel sat erect on his great white mount, ceremonial saber at his side. He carried no other arms but a pistol in its holster. His officers were behind him, near the center. Behind them, the Algerian tirailleurs sat at uneasy attention. They had no uniforms but the desert dress to which they were accustomed. Most wore turbans that might have been white at one time, but which were rarely washed and had become varying shades of tan and brown. Others wore fezzes, red and cocked at odd angles on their heads. The variety of their dirty costumes gave them the appearance of a ragtag band of desert ruffians. The image was belied by their faces, hard and desert-worn, and by the deadly black barrels of the Gras rifles glinting dully in the sun. Behind the tirailleurs were the blood enemies of the Tuareg, the Shamba cameleers – masters of the northern deserts, called the Haab el Reeh, the Breath of Wind.
Paul was fascinated by the contrast between the two forces. There was nothing remotely scruffy about the Tuareg. In a proud, straight line astride their camels sat the blue men of the Sahara, the Hoggar Tuareg, the noble Ihaggaren, tall and magnificent and swathed in indigo and black. To a man their faces were invisible, covered by the veils drawn up over their mouths and noses. Where most of the Shamba applied their turbans casually, as afterthought, the Tuareg applied their lithams as adornments, as art. The long cotton sheshes were richly dyed in various colors, but all of them were dark. Meters of the soft material were wrapped around their heads, under their chins, the ends draped back over their shoulders or hanging in graceful folds over their chests. Their skin, as much as could be seen of it, was lighter than that of the Algerians who sat across from them. Their eyes were just about all that could be seen of them. Many wore great cloaks of blue, seamed at the shoulder with a hole for the neck and arms but open at the front, the edges delicately embroidered. Others wore finely decorated robes that hung to their calves. Their pants could barely be seen for the robes, but were dark in color and long. Their feet bore leather sandals.
More than half the Tuareg carried rifles, but the weapons could hardly be compared to the Gras. A variety of bores danced in the sun, old muzzle-loaders, flintlocks, or percussion weapons, some nearly a century old. After the rifles, their weapons were more uniform. They hefted shields of tough antelope hide, finely tooled and drawn taut over wood bracing, and brass-tipped spears carried point up, the long wooden shafts intricately carved with linear patterns. All wore swords, big and double-edged, sheathed in leather scabbards. Daggers were hidden beneath every robe, strapped to forearms or hung from neck sheaths. Sabers were slung on the opposite sides from the swords, their blades long and curved, for striking and cutting.
Their number was but a third that of the French expedition, but their sheer presence overwhelmed that of the larger force. Paul saw the men who inhabited the stories of his childhood, and they were everything he had imagined. They were formidable and fierce, proud to the point of arrogance, aristocrats of the Sahara. Where the French simply sat upon their camels, the Tuareg were enthroned upon theirs. Paul could see why they struck such fear into their enemies. Atop their fine racing meharis, armed with fearsome weapons, the Tuareg were larger than life, seemingly invincible. That a man could not see their faces added to the awe and fed the fear.
Paul sat rigidly in his saddle studying the eyes one pair at a time, looking for a hint of familiarity. His gaze traveled the line, one slit after another. He wondered whether he would know Moussa’s eyes after so long, or whether Moussa would know him. But if Moussa was among them he gave no sign.
One of the Tuareg moved slowly forward, the same man who had stopped the march. No rank could be distinguished among them, except that a drum was strapped to the back of his saddle. It was the tobol, the drum of authority. He nudged his camel with his feet, while the colonel, using his reins, rode forward as well. As he began to move, he said, almost inaudibly, “Madani, forward.”
El Madani, a grizzled NCO, left his position among the ranks of the other Algerians, drawing up to the left and slightly to the rear of Flatters. The colonel spoke Arabic but liked to use an interpreter, to make certain he missed no meaning. El Madani was a veteran whose father had been a merchant in Akabli, a caravan crossroads. As a boy he had learned the Tuareg language, which he could also read, and his French was flawless.
The Targui spoke first. “I am Attici,” he said. “I extend the greetings of the Lord Amenokai.”
As El Madani repeated the words to Colonel Flatters, Attici reached beneath his robe and withdrew a paper, rolled and tied with a fine leather string. He leaned forward, ignoring Madani’s outstretched hand, and passed it directly to Flatters. He waited in silence as the colonel opened it. The message was written with ink of camel urine and charcoal. The colonel glanced at the message, then passed it to El Madani.
As the tirailleur studied it, Flatters said, “I am Lieutenant Colonel Paul Flatters, and bring the peaceful greetings and gifts of the government of the Republic of France to the Amenokal Ahitagel and the people of the Hoggar.”
El Madani looked up from his reading and translated, adding lord before the amenokal’s name. When he finished, he read the amenokal’s message to the colonel.
“The road to the south is not safe,” he read. “There is trouble. The Sudanese killed a whole caravan from Tripoli because they thought there were Christians among them. Take the most direct road, for we do not care to see you come into our ariwans.”
Attici spoke again. “The Lord Amenokal is to the south, near Abalessa,” he said. “He has sent his able emissary Chikkat to lead you through the Hoggar.” Attici indicated the guide in the line of Tuareg. “He knows the way as well as Ahitagel himself. He and three others will guide you. Your own guides are not welcome, and must leave immediately.”
There was no stir among the Iforass guides. They had expected as much.
“We agree,” El Madani said for the colonel, “and thank you for your hospitality.”
Paul nudged his mehari forward and stopped next to the colonel. He spoke so softly that not even El Madani could hear. “Begging the colonel’s pardon, sir, I wonder if you might inquire after my aunt and cousin. I think it would be of use—”
“Not now, deVries,” Flatters snapped. “Later, when we are near their camps.”
“Of course, sir.”
Paul returned to his position as El Madani was inviting the Tuareg to share a meal. “The colonel would be honored to invite you to stay with us and—”
Without listening to the rest, Attici abruptly moved forward through the line of tirailleurs, stopping in front of two magnificent yellow Tibesti she-camels being tended by a Shamba, who regarded him with undisguised hatred.
“These are gifts for the Lord Amenokal,” Attici said. It was a statement, not a question.
“The colonel will present camels and horses personally—” El Madani began to say, but Attici already had the reins, and was leading the camels away. The Shamba tender moved as if to block his way, but the colonel waved him off. Without responding to the invitation or acknowledging the gift, Attici rode back through the line of his men. All but four, the new guides, turned to follow, and the Tuareg were gone as quickly as they had appeared.
“Sassy bastards,” Remy said.
The Iforass huddled with Pobeguin to collect their pay, and then they too disappeared, to the west.
It all happened so quickly, Paul marveled.
And almost as quickly, the pessimism that had dogged the caravan evaporated as well. Their doubts about the colonel were unfounded. The man knew what he was doing after all. The Tuareg had answered.
The Tuareg had said yes.
The killing ground was carefully chosen. Mahdi squatted, squinting into the sun’s glare. His practiced eye roamed the amphitheater of rock with its tamarisk trees at the bottom, near the well called Tadjenout tin Tarabine. They would make camp to the west, over the ridge where they would not be seen. From there they could enter the arena at will, with hidden rock defiles obscuring the entrances and providing cover.
His hand rested on the sword sheathed in its ornate scabbard. The leather on the hilt was worn smooth. His hand was comfortable there, more so than on the rifle in his other hand. Rifles. Tools of cowards. But Attici had insisted, and Attici was in line to succeed one day as amenokal, and his word had carried the argument.
Mahdi was satisfied. For its sin of arrogant intrusion the advancing French expedition would pay a heavy price. Tadjenout was perfect. Tamrit and Attici would be pleased.
It was the first moment of satisfaction Mahdi had felt in weeks. Ever since the djemaa he had been brooding. The night Daia had come to join him, he had greeted her with joy in his heart. He showered her with gifts he had chosen with such care – earrings from Hausaland, a robe from Timbuktu. He had taken great pleasure in giving them to her and had expected… well, something more than cool indifference. And then as the night fell and the fire blazed he had seen it for the first time. He was not a clever man around women. He felt awkward with them and did not hope to fathom their mysteries. But he did not need to be clever to see Daia’s look of longing, to know it was not for him. Moussa sat apart from them, talking quietly with his friend Taher and drinking tea. He seemed oblivious to Daia. When Mahdi caught the first gaze she was so discreet he nearly missed it. Then, more carefully, he watched until chance was eliminated. She tried to conceal it, but to Mahdi, who worshiped her, who was so acutely aware of her every look and movement, it was something that she could not hide. And then he worried that if he could see it everyone else could as well. Even as he seethed he forced patience upon himself.
Mahdi had no idea that a mere look in a woman’s eyes could cause him such pain. He was angered by his weakness. How could any woman affect him so? It was a helpless, dull ache he felt as she unknowingly turned the blade of her indifference inside him. He had no weapons to fight such a look, or such a feeling. He tried to will it not to be, but it would not leave him. He tried to catch her attention, then, to say interesting things, witty and clever things. But he knew he was forcing it, that he was not being interesting and that she was only being polite as she listened.
His hand squeezed the hilt of his sword. Should he kill Moussa? It would be easy enough to take him in the middle of the night, to leave the certain signs of Shamba, so that she would not know. No. Unthinkable. He would make a fair fight of it and kill him cleanly, with honor, something he would have to do sooner or later in light of the blow Moussa had struck in the djemaa. That he could defeat Moussa in single combat was without doubt. Yet Moussa seemed oblivious to Daia’s glances; he seemed not to return them. Did he scheme behind his veil? Did they sneak away at night, mocking him?
“I have seen your gaze,” he said to her when finally they were alone, his eyes wounded, his meek voice belying a man so quick to fury.
“I do not understand your meaning,” Daia lied, her heart beating quickly at the accusation. Had she been so transparent?
“Tonight in camp,” Mahdi said, “during the meal, even as we talked together, you could not take your eyes from from him.”
“Your imagination is active,” she said, her face reddening. “I have sworn myself to you, Mahdi. Have I not said it?”
“It is so, yet you do not look at me with the same eyes, Daia. Your heart does not live in concert with your words. I will kill him and be done with it.”
“No! You must not!” She said it too quickly, knowing he was judging her, but she couldn’t help it. She feared for Moussa’s life. Mahdi had killed men for much less. Somehow it had all gone too far. Her heart had led the way and she had followed, and now everything precious was at risk. Was she such an easy woman? Could she be so easily shaken from her path?
And in that instant she knew she must put the longings of her heart aside, that she must give up her forbidden thoughts and remember her honor. I must not go farther down this road, she told herself. I will not betray Mahdi. Nor will I jeopardize Moussa, who seems anyway indifferent to me. I have cast my lot.
“He has done nothing to deserve your wrath, Mahdi. Leave him be.”
“On your journey with him from Ideles—?”
“It was simply a journey. We traveled together, Mahdi, from one place to another. Moussa conducted himself honorably. That is the truth of the matter. I have pledged myself to you, and so shall it be.”
He heard the firmness in her voice, yet did not believe it.
“I forbid you to travel with him again.”
At that Daia bristled. “Forbid! Is this the lesson your Senussi teach? Is it what makes you disappear with them for weeks at a time, to learn how they treat women? Would you wave the Koran at your wife like a club? I am not some ass, Mahdi, to be prodded before your stick! You may forbid nothing! It is not your right to permit or forbid a thing to me! Save your orders for the imrad, for those who will obey!”
“Do not slander the Senussi, Daia. They are holy men. Their cause is just.”
“Holy men who teach disrespect?”
“I do not wish to argue the matter. I did not mean to order you.”
“I would favor it if you learned persuasion, Mahdi. It will serve us better.”
Mahdi felt helpless before her. The Senussi would take no such insolence from a mere woman and would mock him for his weakness. But she was no mere woman, and most of the Senussi were Arabs who did not understand the ways of the Tuareg, a people who were too proud, too independent to submit their will to that of another – even fully to Allah. He prayed for guidance but no guidance came. He was her captive, not she his. She would never be pliant. No Ihaggaren woman would ever be, but in her it went further. She was free, too free. Marriage would not shackle her to him, but he prayed it would help.
He sought to make amends. “I am sorry, Daia. I have spoken without thinking. I did not mean to offend you.” When she nodded but said nothing, he went on. “We shall be married after the French matter is disposed of,” he told her, then hurriedly added, “if that is your wish, of course.”
“Yes,” she said. Again she told herself she was lucky to have him, but all the same she was glad of the French coming, of the time it would give her. “Of course. I have said as much. After the French.” When they parted neither of them was satisfied.
For the next few weeks the conflict consumed him as he crisscrossed the desert, making preparations. It preoccupied him in his discussions with Tamrit, who accused him of inattention. It distracted him even when he prostrated himself in prayer before his God.
His concentration had never failed him. Yet now, despite his efforts, there was only Daia. Yes, he would marry her immediately. But it was not enough.
Moussa. He bristled with hatred for the ikufar.
Moussa. Had not Moussa stolen the amenokal from him? His own father? Did it matter whether Moussa had tried to do it, or did it only matter that it had happened, that his father had come to banish Mahdi to the ashes of indifference, that he had come to welcome only Moussa in his tent, as if Moussa and not Mahdi were his only son?
Would it matter now, with Daia? Could he now let Moussa take away this woman, as he had taken away his father?
It was not enough to marry. He would have to deal with Moussa.
The caravan pressed on, having nearly completed its passage through the Amadror, the vast sizzling flat of gravelly desolation. The mountains of the Hoggar loomed at last in the south. The instant Attici’s guides had arrived the procession had changed course twenty degrees more to the east. The officers noted the change and were uneasy, since the Iforass had been so steady in bearing, but fell silent when the colonel asked which of them might show the way instead.
The Amadror began to lose its anesthetizing sameness. Occasional patches of sand and even some acacia trees were visible. Every so often they would see a bird, or several flying together, and a great shout would arise, men pointing and laughing and talking.
The flat became more rolling, and the rolling became hills, and the hills became the Hoggar, its odd volcanic peaks and spires struggling through the almost iridescent violet haze that seemed to emanate from them. They had never seen such a place, and rode enraptured. The camels stepped tenderly through the rocks, which had changed from smooth gravel to rough cobbles to razor-sharp stones, at first spaced well apart but then closer and hard to avoid. It slowed their progress, and at times the caravan stretched out over two kilometers, a great undulating jumble of humps and baskets and bags and men, winding through the craggy passages and long wadis. The camels groaned as if mortally wounded when they cut their feet, their cries returning in haunted echoes from the rock walls. They shifted themselves in exaggerated motions to favor their feet, sometimes losing their loads altogether or having them slip out of place until their tenders had to stop and adjust them. In the worst places the men walked, leading their mounts by hand.
Late one morning they arrived at a large open shelf in the mountains. They were close to a huge peak, called Serkout by the guides, who answered questions rarely, and then grudgingly. One of them stopped to talk with Flatters. He pointed to the edge of the shelf, where a water-stained basin had been cut into the granite.
“We had hoped to find water in this guelta,” he said to the colonel while El Madani translated. “The rains have been light and it is dry. We cannot continue without water. We have been four days since finding it, and on our path there is no more for seven days.” He pointed to a valley that disappeared into the mountains. “There is a well there called Tadjenout. An hour and a half by camel. We must fill the bags.”
“Very well then,” the colonel replied, gazing up the valley. “We shall make the detour.”
“No.” The Targui shook his head firmly. “The route is too difficult for meharis carrying packs. You must send them with only water bags and leave the other supplies here until our return.”
As El Madani translated he felt compelled to offer the colonel a bit of unsolicited advice. He was normally silent, but on matters that affected his men he had no fear of speaking. “Begging the colonel’s pardon, sir,” he said.
“Madani?”
“If the colonel pleases, perhaps it would be better to go to the well in force. I do not trust these men. This is a well-known ploy of the Tuareg. They seek to split our force, to weaken it. There are no scouts on our flanks to—”
The colonel bristled. “That will be quite enough, Madani. You are out of place.” It wasn’t the first time they had made a similar arrangement for obtaining water. It seemed reasonable in difficult terrain. “When I require your instruction on deployment I shall ask for it.” His voice was cutting, piercing the front ranks of the men listening behind. Some of the tirailleur’s men heard the rebuke, but accepted it with no change of expression, no thought of argument. He had raised the point; the colonel had rejected it. There was no disgrace in that. The colonel turned to Captain Masson, who agreed with El Madani about not splitting the force but had long since stopped arguing with the colonel.
“Captain! Unload the baggage here. All camels to carry water skins. Cavour and Dennery with fifteen men to provide cover and load water. DeVries and five more to stand watch on the piste to the well. Dianous to stand command of the base camp with the rest of the men and supplies. You and I shall take the horses. The doctor and engineers may accompany us as they please.”
With that the colonel started up the hill, toward the well of Tadjenout.
It was the fourth week of Moussa’s journey. Since his departure from Abalessa he had handled the negotiations for a trade of salt and camels with the Kel Owi in Admer. He had then escorted a small caravan from that village to Timissao. After that had been the resolution of a dispute over arable land between vassal families of the Dag Rali and the Iklan Tawsit. All of it the normal business of the Ihaggaren, yet all of it meaningless. He was livid at having been ordered on such errands to the south at the very instant the French were approaching from the north. He knew what it meant to his reputation and felt the stain upon his honor. The amenokal doesn’t trust me. He had done nothing to deserve the mistrust except to be born half one thing and half another. It was the same disease of the blood that had plagued him all his life.
There had been one bright spot in his journey. A trader in Admer had showed him a rare manuscript, carefully crafted and beautifully bound, a collection of fables the trader said had been transcribed by a marabout in Egypt. Moussa didn’t know the truth of it, for he could not read Arabic, but as he turned the tooled-leather volume over in his hands he instinctively knew its richness. He thought of Daia when he saw it, of the hours she spent teaching the children of her ariwan. He could imagine her reading to them from this book, and the vision brought him pleasure. He wrapped it in oilcloth and intended to present it to her as a wedding gift.
His weeks of travel had not dimmed the sadness and longing he felt when he thought of her. Mahdi had come to him late at night after the djemaa. Moussa expected a fight after the blow he had delivered in the amenokal’s tent, but Mahdi was strangely subdued. He began to ask Moussa about his intentions, but it was clearly difficult for him and his question died of awkwardness before it was asked. Moussa understood what he wanted.
“She has made it plain to me that you are to be married. Is it not so? I will not interfere, Cousin.” The wedding had been announced the next morning by the amenokal himself. Events had been set into motion. Difficult as it was, he would give her what she wanted.
But then, as he was leaving the camp for his trip to the south, he had stopped to bid his mother farewell. They had talked about trivial things. Serena had known the look in his eye. “You seem preoccupied,” she said.
He shrugged. “It is nothing.”
“Oh,” she said, working at her leather. “I thought it might be Daia.”
“Well, it is not,” he said too quickly. Moussa tried to escape his mother’s gaze, but he had never been able to do that successfully. Now he saw no need to pretend. “She is Mahdi’s woman. They are to be married. She has said it, and Mahdi has said it.” Serena put down her knife.
“And what have you said?”
“That I will not interfere.”
“I am not asking of your head, Moussa. I am asking of your heart.”
“It is the same thing.”
She smiled at that. “I don’t know how you can be so quick to show a camel your feeling for it, Moussa, and so slow to show a woman.” She stood and began preparing tea, stirring at the ashes of the fire until they glowed. “When I met your father the amenokal told me I was being selfish, that I was thinking only of myself when I said I wanted to marry him. He said what I wanted to do was wrong. The other nobles and the marabouts all agreed with him. My own head knew he was right. My heart alone did not. But I knew from the moment I met Henri that I would listen to my heart. Do I have to tell you which was right?”
He had thought about it every day since then, about what might have been, about what might be. Malish, mektoub, the imam would say. Never mind, it is written. He shrugged to himself. Is anything ever written? Is anything ever done? He dumped his cold tea into the ash of his fire and rose to hunt with Taka. He sensed rather than saw the mehari approaching across the desolate stretch of plain through which he had been traveling. He pulled his brass spyglass from the bag slung at his camel’s side and steadied his arm on the saddle as he trained it upon the rider’s blurry image. It was Lufti, riding like a man whose mount was on fire. Eventually the slave saw him and waved.
“Hamdullilah, I found you, sire, praise Allah!” The mehari was wild-eyed with exertion, its breath labored and hard.
“You push your mount severely in this heat,” Moussa said, concerned. “Is all well in the ariwan?”
“Yaya, sire, all is well, but the Mistress Serena threatened me plenty if I did not find you quickly. I missed you by only a night in Timissao. Then, as Allah is my witness, I lost your track!” There was a mixture of pride and incredulity in his voice. For Moussa to have obscured his passage sufficiently to lose his teacher in such things was a matter of some note. “You have learned well, sire, if your servant may say it! No Tebu devil will find you, that is sure, yaya! There was a time… but never mind, never mind!” He slid quickly from his mount and drew a leather pouch from beneath his robe. He opened it and carefully withdrew a letter.
“The mistress sends you a message, sire, and asks that it be read in haste.” Moussa saw the clear hand of his mother on the paper:
Moussa, I hope this letter finds you well. I write in French in order that no one else may know this news. I have been shown a letter by the wife of the amenokal. It was received from the French expedition, addressed to Ahitagel. He had already departed for In Salah, so I was asked to open and interpret it. The letter was in response to an earlier message from Ahitagel. It dealt with a point of rendezvous, with a route proposed by the French. There was also a request for a meeting. At the end there were names of some of the officers of the expedition. One of those names – I had to read it over and over to be certain – was Lieutenant Paul deVries. I could not believe it! His age would be right, of course, for him to have become an officer in the army. How well I can see him in uniform, even after what happened to his father. It has been the way of your father’s family for generations. And it would be like him to have found his way here. Oh, Moussa. After these many years of silence, can it be anyone other than our Paul?
There is yet another development. I have received word that Tamrit ag Amellal is among those joining the amenokal at In Salah. I have never spoken of him to you before. It was not important, because I thought he had disappeared forever. He is a man who tried to do harm to your father. It is said that he has joined with the Senussi, and that they mean to prevent the expedition of Colonel Flatters. I do not know the truth of it, but Tamrit is a man whose spirit is hard and filled with hate. He knows only treachery. Nothing good can come from his involvement in this.
I sense that much is happening around the French expedition that cannot be seen or heard. I have never known such secrecy among the Ihaggaren. If you can learn of their route, I believe you will learn much of our intentions. If the French are turned to the west, it will be a good sign. They will pass near Abalessa and then freely to the south. But if they are turned to the east, toward Serkout, it means they are doomed.
How I wish the amenokal were alive! Your Abba would know how to counsel you in this. I must confess I do not. If there is trouble, the fact that it is the French themselves who bring it does not make it less painful. That our Paul might be among them makes me afraid for him. It may already be too late to do anything.
I think of you always. May you travel in safety.
Moussa sat down and reread the letter.
Paul!
His heart leapt with joy at the thought of his cousin. A flood of memories and excitement washed over him. So long he had wondered what had become of Paul, so often he had thought of him. For him to be here, in the desert! It was extraordinary. He looked at the date on the letter. Three weeks had passed since it was written. Damn the amenokal for keeping him from the French! He knew immediately what he must do.
“Rest your mehari, Lufti. Then return to the ariwan,” he said, lashing his belongings into place on the saddle. “Tell no one you have seen me.”
“Not even the demon Kel Asouf could pry it from me,” Lufti promised. “But sire, where are you going?”
“I don’t know exactly. To find the French.” Moussa had a sudden thought and withdrew the oilcloth packet from his pouch. He sat down with a paper and pen and wrote quickly.
Daia—
May it please you to read to the children from this book, and bring them its light. Perhaps one day you might teach this child as well, the life in its words. I wish you much happiness in your marriage.
Moussa
There was much more he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. It was all too delicate. Thewould have to do. Then he shook his head and tore it up. On a second piece of paper he wrote the same message, except that this time he left out the words in your marriage. Perhaps his mother was right. Perhaps his heart was not yet ready to yield.
“Give this to the Mistress Daia,” he said, folding the paper and slipping it under the string of the oilcloth.
“Yaya, sire.”
Moussa urged his mount quickly to the northeast. Lufti watched until his master was but a speck, and then the speck was gone.