Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

The desert announced itself as ripples on the horizon. With remarkable speed the hardpan and dust gave over to sand, rising in white dunes to heights I would not have imagined possible.

In the desert the Tauregs’ skills became obvious. The way they navigated, counting the dunes as if they were landmarks rather than identical shifting masses. The way they trekked up the lee of each white mountain, threading the path of least resistance, finding the firm-packed sand for good-footing, finding the best respite from the wind, and in the evening, blessed intervals of shade.

An unease rose in me. Each mile took us further into a prison. Neither Marco or I could leave again without the goodwill of men such as these: the desert trapped us better than high walls.

The white sands multiplied the sun’s heat and made a furnace in which we cooked. Marco made no concession to the temperature, wearing all his blacks, the frockcoat, waistcoat, his white gloves. I began to think him changed, like the Salash of the deep Sahar. No human could endure as he did. And beneath his tall hat his skin stayed paste-white and unburned.

By night, shivering beneath the cold blaze of the heavens, we sat among the merchants with the dunes rising all about, ghost pale, huger than the waves on the roughest sea. On such nights the merchants would tell their tales in murmured phrases, so little animation in them that it was hard to tell who spoke behind their shesh, until at some punch-line the storyteller would start to wave his hands and the whole circle joined in with harsh jabber and raucous laughter. Behind us in the drover circle the men played the game of twelve lines on ancient boards, silent save for the chatter of dice. And around the fire circles, phantoms in the night, walked the Ha’tari, passing a low and haunting song between them, and guarding us from dangers unknown.





34


Five years earlier

Somewhere in the loneliness of the Sahar, amongst the twenty days of our crossing, we passed unnoticed from Maroc into Liba. The Taureg spoke of a land that had lain between the realms long ago, devoured by nibbles until Maroc met Liba in the sands. A land of people who would have done well to heed the saying about inches given and miles taken, or as the locals have it, ‘beware the camel’s nose’ after the story of the camel who begs his way by inches into the tent, then refuses to leave.

Hamada rises from desert sands in low mud buildings, rounded as if by the wind, and whitewashed to dazzle the eye. They look at first like pebbles half-bedded in the ground. There is water here: you can taste it on the air, see it in the stands of karran grass that stabilize the dunes and hold back their tides. As you begin to move among the white buildings you see grander structures beyond, nestling in the slight hollow that holds the city. In some ancient time a god fell to earth here and fractured the deepest bedrock, bringing to the surface the waters of an aquifer untapped in any other place.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been as far from anywhere, Brother Marco.’ I shaded my eyes and watched the city through the heat-shimmer.

‘I’m not your brother,’ he said.

Omal, riding between us, snorted. ‘Far from anywhere? Hamada means “centre”. This is the heart of Liba. Hamada.’

We rode in with the morning sun throwing our shadows behind us, hauling on our reins to keep the camels from bolting for the water. Even so they picked the pace up, snorting and blowing, licking at their muzzles with coarse tongues. Faces appeared at shadowed windows and the drovers called out halloos to old friends. In the shade of tiny alleys scrawny children chased scrawnier chickens.

Deeper in, the streets of Hamada boast tall houses of whitewashed plaster over brick with high turrets to catch the wind. Further still and our column came in sight of great halls in white stone, public buildings to dwarf the works in Albaseat, constructed to the sparse and grand arithmetic of the Moorish scholars. Libraries, galleries for sculpture, pillared baths where desert men might settle in the luxury of deep waters.

‘Not too shabby.’ I felt like the dirty peasant come to court.

‘Gold has been made and spent here.’ Marco nodded. ‘Gold and more gold.’ For once the sneer had left him. It’s an unsettling business having to re-evaluate your world view. Neither of us were enjoying it.

Our caravan turned from the centre road and entered a vast market square with pens partitioned for camels, goats, sheep, and even a few horses. Here black-clad crowds thronged, merchants anticipating the camel train and ready to haggle. Omal and his comrades helped Marco down and set his trunk on the sandy flagstones before him. He approached it with the bandy gait of a man too long in the saddle.