Chapter 22 #2
I shake my head. ‘Every affinity of the Heavenly Birds holds importance.’ I rub the dahlia between my fingers.
‘That is easy to say when you have nūr.’
Behind us, No-Name continues to yank at weeds. At seeing this, a sudden memory from my girlhood bleeds through my thoughts: Uma bent over the royal gardens in Azadniabad, trimming weeds and flora with the monks.
I blink hard. ‘The best power is subtle. Flowers grow beyond anyone’s estimation. Think of the Great Flood, the raven, the crane. In Azadniabad, we believe Brother-Nature’s wrath is immense. I’ve seen it.’
‘Flowers are not made for battle.’
‘Great warriors have died by mere flora. How did Eskander the conqueror die?’
‘He was poisoned . . .’
‘By a blue-dotted dahlia from the Unseen world. A jinn-poison.’
Her eyes redden. ‘Well, I cannot control the Unseen. It’s enough for me to train in iron-bone.’
‘Well, flowers can be poisonous.’ I incline my head and my lips curve up bitterly. ‘If it’s poison we must study, I can help you with that.’
She begins pacing in circles around the glass fountains, the francolins inside slanting to follow her movements. ‘Fine. But I only know the flowers I tended back home.’
A curiosity piques my interest and I remember what she told me. ‘You are from Khor?’
Arezu glances away. ‘Yes.’ Like Cemil.
Khor is an established trading node in the central Camel Road, south of the Tezmi’a pass. I turn away Arezu’s word, not wishing to know more. She is nothing but sand flying on the breeze, pricking skin but easily dismissed.
‘So this is where you disappear to before the fast?’ Yabghu’s voice cuts through the air, as he crests over the hill.
‘O-overseer,’ I stammer.
‘What is this, rukh?’ he snaps. ‘I’ve caught you again with pazktab children.’
Arezu’s gaze swings between us. ‘We are her students.’
‘What she means is, these students are targets at the pazktab school. They have no clanhouse nor patron to protect them. So I thought to teach them . . . as a good deed,’ I hastily explain.
Yabghu’s eyes twitch. ‘In our months of training, not once have you expressed piety. Pray that I never see you again with them.’
Something strange happens. Arezu throws herself at Yabghu’s feet with flushed cheeks.
‘Please!’ she cries out. ‘By the Divine, she teaches us. Do not doubt her good deeds!’ Yabghu tries to leap back but Arezu clings to his leathery clogs. ‘She is our only hope to withstand the pazktab schools!’
Yabghu grits his teeth as Arezu’s tears wet his pale trousers. ‘Enough, child,’ he relents. ‘I believe you. Perhaps my rukh can be well intentioned.’
I struggle to maintain a neutral expression as I help Arezu up, bending to her ears and breathing, ‘Thank you.’
‘Master, do not expect me to do that again,’ she only whispers back.
An idea strikes me. I brush Yabghu’s sleeve. ‘Overseer, perhaps you can help me train them for the hour?’
His eyes drop to my hand on his arm. ‘By the Heavens, I will not—’
Arezu’s eyes dampen again, and he falters. ‘Only this once.’
After I convince Yabghu to guide the students through the First-Stratum of summoning, other pazktab students begin to take notice of our morning work. By midday, fifteen pazktab students have joined us.
My recruiting is not finished. After trifecta class on the monastery’s terrace, I intercept Katayoun. I tell her about my intention to enter the Marka.
‘You have fallen under the same mad spell of ambition as Cemil.’ She does not sneer nor raise her voice, as if that too is an effort that she does not intend on wasting.
‘Ambition is not a sin,’ I retort back. ‘In my first month as an initiate, I watched you. You completed the monks’ tasks well, but never more than what they asked of us.
You are unremarkable. Everything about you is economical.
’ Evidently so – she hardly blinks; she cannot muster the energy of being offended.
‘I need you in my Marka. I cannot compete with only children.’
‘Drafting me is as terrible as having a squadron of children,’ she says before continuing down the stairs.
‘My stipend,’ I say to her back.
Katayoun stills.
‘If you join my squadron, for the rest of the year, half of my earnings go to you.’
She leans against the bronze balustrades of the stairway, considering. ‘If I join you, it’s inviting the hatred of our masters and Captain Fayez. I am the way I am, to survive. When you were recruited into our trifecta, you replaced a rukh who died. I do not share her death wish.’
‘If we perform horridly—’
‘You will,’ she reminds me.
‘– you remain comfortable at Zero-Slash. If we do well, you become First-Slash. You lose nothing, while gaining my stipend.’
Katayoun marches back up the stairs. ‘I am only one person.’
‘Of course.’ I lean in and place several ingots in her palm. ‘You will get more if you convince another low-rank to join.’
‘Cemil will murder us.’
‘My stipend,’ I repeat, curling her fingers around the copper.
As nimble as a fox, she pockets it. ‘There are only two fools who trust me. Sharra and Aina.’
‘That’s good enough.’ I hide my triumph.
During mealtimes, my students continued to report information gathered from the other captains’ Marka squadrons while they served food. From this, with Katayoun, I begin contriving my plan.
The next day, I announce the last piece needed to complete our entry:
‘I went to the Za’skar bureau of duels to register our squadron. Your task is to convince the other thirteen pazktab students to join us, making us over twenty, the minimum number required to compete.’
Yasaman raises her hand. ‘It will not be not easy, master.’
‘They are young. Promise gold and glory.’
‘You expect untrained students to battle in the Marka?’ Arezu arches a brow.
‘I expect them to distract. We are following Eskander’s strategies, outmatched in power but unmatched in speed and diversion. No one will have predicted it.’
Arezu smirks. ‘Even if we convince them, they do not trust you as an Azadnian.’
That is a good point. ‘I will make them trust me,’ I insist.
‘But you rarely speak kindly,’ Sohrab remarks and my mouth gapes open.
‘You are inept at social interactions,’ Arezu adds.
‘Master holds me,’ Yahya protests and I feel a little reassured.
‘In truth, you are terrible at making friends. You berated and beat Arezu when she thieved from me,’ Sohrab dares to say.
‘Because she hurt you.’
‘Which proves my argument; then, you tried to teach her how to steal from me better.’
‘Okay, enough.’ I pretend to straighten my tunic. ‘May the Divine reward your honesty, you pigs.’
‘You prove our point again. To draft pazktab students, you must charm them.’
‘Charm?’ I recoil.
‘Yes, charm.’ Arezu sidles up to me. ‘With pretty words and your pretty looks. Make them believe you are their next Eskander. Pazktab students are suck-ups to the older soldiers.’
And because I cannot argue with sound logic, a better plan strikes me.
‘You are bribing them?’ Arezu screeches the next morning, pointing to the hastily gathered thirteen pazktab children. They line up across the fountain gardens.
Yahya, who insisted on being held, laughs at her and I switch his weight to my other arm.
‘Katayoun inspired this idea. I tried to speak of glory but found it hard to convince children who cannot wipe their own asses properly. Why persuade them on the merits of bravery when we are all cheap and swayed by primal greed? You claimed I should be Eskander – he would approve,’ I explain.
I jangle my satchel, containing my year’s saved stipend.
‘One copper ingot for each child, a low bargain. It hardly matters to me.’ I shrug.
In actuality, it does. Due to my Azadnian descent, I receive little benefits from enlisting in Za’skar except for this measly stipend.
The senior officials have frozen land benefits from the royal court.
This reduced me to borrowing a healthy weight of ingots from Yabghu – whose stipend as an overseer is much grander than my own.
I claimed that I wished to buy more prayer garb and I would pay off the debt soon – which I have no intention of doing.
‘Which of you would like an ingot?’ I ask the awaiting students, whose mouths part like gaping fish.
‘They are young,’ Arezu argues.
‘Greed does not discriminate. Besides, you are sixteen, now.’ I place Yahya back down but he reaches for me again.
‘You must stop this horrible habit. You mistake our relationship. I was compliant before but now, I will be firm. I cannot hold you, especially during a battle. It’s disgusting.’
‘Please,’ Yahya insists.
‘You pig, put your arms down.’ I carefully step a hair-width of distance around him. ‘Must I remind you all, we have a Marka to scheme for and enemies to destroy.’ They are not listening.
The corner of Arezu’s left eyelid twitches. ‘When do I receive an ingot?’
‘You are older and wiser. Tell me this.’ I prod her chest. ‘Do the scholars teach greed or have you learnt this on your own? Do you not heed the priests’ sermons on Mondays?’
‘I do.’ A student named Firat perks up.
‘– ten, eleven, twelve . . .’ I raise the coppers.
‘Wait,’ Arezu says.
‘ . . . thirteen. Arezu, I train you without expecting payment,’ I say. ‘You get no ingot.’