Chapter 14
After a night of beating myself with an iron whisk, as per Yabghu’s orders, I walk toward Little Paradise gardens for trifecta training.
It is early, before the dim blue of dawn when the birds have not chirped, but the sun has started to awaken.
At my side, No-Name steps tentatively through foliage fed from an oasis, picking through tall tulips and purplish saffron.
A weening light shines upon baby-horned bulls slumbering atop the fountain tiles, musk-scented water pouring through long qanat systems. Red sparrows warble quietly inside the azure bowls, clustered little babes yearning for a lick of Paradise waters.
I am careful not to disturb the creatures as I make my way to a crop of almond and poplar trees, my waterskin filled with freshly brewed kahvah.
After climbing a low-hanging branch, I unsheathe my onyx. No-Name crouches against the base of the tree, and I try not to look at her.
‘What is that?’ she asks, pointing toward the fountains. Ignoring her, I balance on the limb through the nine stances with my training knife. ‘What is that?’ she repeats.
‘What is what?’ I snap just as a hoarse yell breaks through the clearing. Below the branches, I recognise dark blue tunics and loose, ill-fitting trousers with gold hemp cords yanked tight at the waist. It’s Eajīz from the pazktab school.
I watch as three of the students surround another against the fountain.
A small boy with a swollen cheek and bloodied teeth shoves away the fists of a lanky girl.
Before long, his satchel is ripped open as the girl tosses out his parchments and calligraphy set.
She digs around furiously and proudly produces his bundle of apples, slivers of melon and dried lamb meat inside palm leaves.
Behind the bloodied boy, an even younger boy wails at the sight of his friend’s demise. ‘By the Divine, don’t hurt him!’ he yells through a broken lip.
‘A brat barely done milking is ordering me what to do,’ the lanky girl sneers.
‘What is that?’ No-Name asks again, half in shadows, eyes pitched
black.
‘Who, you mean. Those are pazktab children beating a boy,’ I tell her.
‘Will you help him?’
‘No,’ I decide, ‘the pazktab children put scorpions in my tea.’
But the boy’s cry has me peeking again. The leader clenches him by the collar, her knuckles digging into his fleshy neck.
‘I am taking all of this,’ she says, as her companions stuff the scraps of food in their satchels. ‘But to be polite, we’re leaving behind an apple. We have manners in stealing.’
I open my waterskin, knowing I should keep practising my nine stances before training, but somehow unable to look away from the children.
‘What if he runs to the Qabl monks?’ a student points out.
The girl scratches her kerchief. ‘Okay.’ Then she gives the boy a half-measured kick in the legs. He cries out, cradling it. ‘Taken care of.’
I sip from my kahvah, marvelling at the pragmatism.
But the little one with the swollen lip staggers to his feet and pounces on the girl. She rears back into my tree. The force jostles the branch, knocking over my onyx knife and kahvah before I can blink.
What in the Gates of Hells. After scrambling down, I stride over and grab my waterskin.
The girl looks startled by both the falling objects and my sudden presence. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘Your . . .’ I search for the appropriate word, ‘training knocked into my tree.’
‘Who are you?’
‘No one.’ I glance at her fist and the boy who had the satchel. ‘Please, continue on. But away from me. This is my trifecta’s training grounds.’
‘Training grounds?’ The pazktab girl seethes.
The injured boy whimpers. I scoop up my onyx, ignoring that whimper. ‘Besides, if you are going to thieve food from this boy, at least finish the job with dignity. You want to kick his leg? Smash his kneecaps instead. One quick blow. He won’t be able to walk.’
‘Why would I cripple him so violently? I have some morals.’ The girl drops her fist and takes in the gold-threading below the sleeves of my tunic; recognition settles in that gaze. ‘It’s the Azadnian recruit from last eve.’
My gaze, too, narrows. ‘Was it you who poisoned my meal?’
Without replying, she charges me with her companions hooting behind her. My eyes widen. I duck from her wild hook, spin and send a quick palm strike to her kidney. There was little force but it sends her crashing into the poplars. She does not stand again.
Her companions stare at me. ‘It is true. Azadnians are child killers,’ one mutters. They haul up the girl between their arms and run off, the apples and melons all but forgotten in their haste.
The target of those children scrambles to his feet. He’s a stout boy and sun-browned, thick curls grazing his head.
‘How did you do that to Arezu?’ he breathes, limping toward me.
‘Your movements . . . are like water.’
The other little boy, sporting a broken lip, merely watches us wide-eyed.
‘It was simple, really. Even Azadnian arts have palm strikes, and combined with iron-bone training, it hurts.’
The boy throws himself at my feet. ‘O master, I’ve read of iron-bone only in the martial tales.’
I blink down. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You went like this, and she went flying like ahhh! And she did not get back up!’
I retreat toward my almond tree, but he follows. I grimace. ‘Please, get away before my overseer sees me with you – you pudgy thing.’
‘You must teach me, esteemed Azadnian master—’
I nearly sputter out my tea. I am as far as one can be from a master. The opposite, actually.
‘– please, I need your help. Pazktab schools are made up of martial clans, and the children without a clan or its protection are the rats. I know I am young but I hear the Sepāhbad was recruited at only thirteen years. His youth never hindered him. Train me!’
‘No.’
‘Please!’
‘No.’
He decides on flattery. ‘With your unpredictable style, the others will envy me. If you train me, I will do your bidding. You are Azadnian; I can ensure the others do not spoil your meals again!’
My cheeks heat at the thought of allying myself with a pazktab child, as if I am that desperate. He steps forward but I shove him back.
‘You are simply confused. In fact, if they thrashed you black and blue, I’d have watched from my tree, content. I want nothing to do with disgusting bone-reeking pazktab children in Sajamistan. Pester another recruit to train you.’
With that, I retreat to the opposite end of the fountains until my trifecta arrives.
Throughout sunrise, as we train, I catch the same young boy peeking through the gardens, observing our stances.
Yabghu allots me a week of curricula to memorise before I join other unranked rukhs in the Easkaria institute.
The scholars teach subjects ranging from arithmetic and old Adamic linguistics to theories of Eajīzi and martial history.
But like the meal in the pavilion, my first week of classes becomes its own torturous trial.
‘To be on time is to arrive early,’ Yabghu advises me at midday, pointing to a school of bone-stone masonry of hexagonal patterns that glows above Za’skar City. Mist clings around its trifecta of bronze domes atop tall pillars like a white shroud, with a topiary of sweet lemon trees at its gates.
‘This was the first school in the history of mankind, patronised by the wives of royal clan leaders long after Adam, containing centuries’ worth of knowledge. A fine education but really every initiate’s place of torture,’ he warns me.
I follow Katayoun to the Easkaria institute for our halqa on martial history and strategy, while Cemil splits off for his Second-Slash classes.
Inside the musty, intimate chambers, the flooring is tiled in ivory shielded by embroidered rugs and silk cushions stuffed behind teak book rests called rahle. Cedar walls are plastered with camel-skin maps. The smog of myrrh incense fills the room, tickling my nostrils.
As we enter, Katayoun turns to me, her tawny eyes flat as always. ‘I will say this once. Speak as little as possible to Scholar Mufasa.’
A leathery scholar sits cross-legged on a tall cushion at the front. I stop short. The same one who openly mocked me during the evening meal.
Scholar Mufasa has beady dark eyes, a stern mouth and severely clipped grey hair.
Over his pale tunic, a pleated emerald robe bears a white pattern, the overgarment stretching to his ankles, slit sides slit, and girded by an embroidered belt.
Stretching across his forehead is a black-threaded pictogram of an indented line with a teardrop – an esteemed symbol indicating his scholarly status.
Behind him sit two apprentices on floor cushions.
‘A quarter of an hour,’ Scholar Mufasa announces softly without even sparing me a glance.
He points to a rahle towering with goatskin scrolls.
‘Any longer and you fail this assignment, resulting in punishment. The material from this week’s texts was on the battles of the Camel Road.
You must translate a prompt from old Adamic linguistics and then answer it through a discourse. Begin!’
Removing my sandals and sitting behind my desk – a rahle – it takes me two tries to unroll my parchment. The script is jumbled letters of ancient Adamic.
After using a flat stone to weigh down the parchment, I cut the nib of my reed pen and dip it into a pot of dissolved gum, honey and lamp soot, remoistening the ink, which wastes ample time. A quarter of an hour. He hopes to fail us.
Translating the glyphs into standard Sajamistani is a trying task, as I am no native in its language. ‘Ten minutes,’ the scholar says gruffly. Sweat beads down my neck. He begins tapping his fingers against his rahle, a music of damnation.
I finish decrypting the language. It reveals a simple prompt – to explain the clan alliances of the Camel Road. I glance up and the scholar stares at me, calm. This feels intentional.
But in history, I cannot fail.