Deserted
"I received your resignation papers, Steward Mukhtab," announced Lord Martin formally as he stepped into Ali Mukhtab's room, which was warmed by a roaring fire despite the perpetual heat of the desert. Formality was the only way to keep his dislike and distrust for this dark-skinned race of brutes from coming to the surface and preventing him from dealing fairly with those he ruled—particularly this man who had been a faithful steward for so many years. Those who served loyally must be treated with respect, rather than contempt, no matter what their ancestry.
"I'm ill." Ali gave a bow that showed how stiff his once agile bones and muscles had become. His face, which Martin remembered shining with all the ferocious energy of the midday sun when he had first arrived in Persopolis as a seven-year-old to begin the difficult training that prepared him to replace Nimr ibn Qadi as steward and Voice of the Tribes, weary and lined from years of tirelessly serving his own people and the Northern invaders.
Martin recalled how Ali's earnest, black eyes had blazed with all the dreams and hopes that his race had placed in him, but now those eyes were heavy with exhaustion and weighed down by pain. Thinking, with a pang, that both he and Ali were wasting away in Persopolis, bearing the terrible burden of exile from their true homes, Martin felt as if his heart was in the sand, as Ali went on flatly, "I no longer have the strength to fulfill my responsibilities as steward with the efficiency and skill that they should be. I crave the indulgence of being released from my duties."
"I've craved such an indulgence from the king for many years," snorted Lord Martin, the bitter and honest words spilling out of his mouth before he was even aware of any intention to say them. He only supposed that he and Ali had worked together for too many years for there not to be a certain openness between them.
They weren't exactly friends, but Ali was the closest person Martin had to a friend in this wretched desert. With his quiet wisdom and gentle strength, Ali had been the greatest comfort when Martin's beloved wife Tabitha had passed onto her reward in the Realms of the Dead when Geoffrey was only five and too young to understand what it meant for a loved one to be gone forever. During that rough time, Ali had been the one who had known when to say a mournful or sympathetic word and when to be silent. Now, it seemed like Martin was going to have to be some solace to Ali when he died. After all, the laws of fealty demanded that a lord see to the comfort of those who saw to his.
"I know that you hate the desert and its people, my lord," observed Ali grimly, and Martin remembered how a twelve-year-old Ali, carrying a tray of tea into Martin's study, had heard him, exasperated by the sand that caked his skin and itched his eyes as well as the prideful people who burned with the constant threat of rebellion, mutter his loathing of sand and sand scuts. Ali, black eyes glimmering like a cat's, had with deliberate grace poured a cup of steaming tea down the front of Martin's robes. In retribution for the searing skin and ruined clothes, Martin had viciously boxed Ali's ears, but, after that incident, they had reached an unspoken accord, a tentative truce: Martin never again insulted the Bazhir in front of Ali, and Ali never again attacked Martin.
"As a second son, I fought in the wars against your people in the hope of being rewarded with lands for my service to the Crown." Martin's lips thinned. "I never thought that the land I would be given would be the sand where so many of my friends died, and that I would be required to rule justly over the men who had slain those companions. I never liked the oppressive heat and gritty sand even when I first rode on it, and, once I saw it soaked red with blood, I hated it. I hoped to just do my tour of duty and escape this desert of death, but I had no way of knowing that my tour of duty would be long enough for me to marry, have a son, and watch that son grow to manhood. I never intended for the desert to become my home, Ali Mukhtab, so it has become my prison."
"The desert may be your prison, my lord, but this castle is mine." Ali's voice was soft as a dream. "I must escape it and travel amongst the tribes one last time before I die. From the sand I was made, and to the sand I must return."
"Will you be comfortable jolting around on your journey?" asked Martin gruffly, trying not to think of the candy that Tabitha had slipped into Ali's pockets or the treats of nuts and dried berries that Ali, returning the favor, had deposited in young Geoffrey's. Geoffrey, because of Ali's smiles and stories, could look into a Bazhir's face and see something more than an enigmatic enemy. Geoffrey, who was now a knight on border patrol, would have screamed himself hoarse at his father if he learned that a sick Ali had been released to the mercies of the cruel desert instead of cared for by the best healers in Persopolis. "You do not have to leave this castle, Ali Mukhtab. You have been a faithful servant, and I will ensure that you are looked after properly if you wish to remain here."
"It is my destiny to leave these cold stone walls and ride free in the desert one last time." Ali closed his eyes for a long moment, and then flicked them open once more. "I appreciate your generosity, my lord, but I want to die among my people and not to try to fight my fate, but accept it with grace."
Martin, thinking that Ali, however civilized he acted as a clever and skilled steward, had the savage blood of the Bazhir raging in his veins that made him yearn for wild winds, open places, and canvas rather than stone dwellings, said stiffly, "In that case, I can only thank you for your long and loyal service. If there is one Bazhir I like and respect, it is you, because you are brave, steadfast, and compassionate—everything a Bazhir isn't supposed to be."
And Martin, after fighting Bazhir so closely he could see the whites of their eyes on the battlefield during King Jasson's conquest, and after ruling them long enough to become familiar with all their harsh laws, knew the Bazhir. They were tough and never merciful. They were hard and never soft. They were cunning and could never be trusted. If you turned your back on them, you would find an arrow lodged in your chest before you could curse.
"Good Bazhir value courage, loyalty, and gentleness, just as good northerners do," Ali replied, and Martin could imagine Geoffrey rolling his eyes and pointing out that the belief that a person could only be moral despite his ethnicity was the very definition of bigotry, because Geoff, whom Martin had raised to esteem justice above all else, had little patience for what he saw as the unfairness of his father's prejudice against the Bazhir.
Yet, Geoff hadn't been in the desert during the tumultuous days of King Jasson's campaign against the Bazhir tribesmen. He hadn't watched the pitiless sun beat down on a sword stained with savage blood. He hadn't smelled the rotting flesh of friends slain by remorseless adversaries and hearing the agonized screams of men maimed for life by brutal foes. Bigotry hadn't been born in Martin; it had been bred into him by the most vicious people imaginable in a landscape so inhospitable that a thirsty man could wander for days without finding a drop to drink.
"You must think me dreadfully prejudiced," commented Martin in the end, because he could say nothing else.
"Everybody is prejudiced." Ali shrugged. "Some are ruled by their prejudices, and others are able to rule justly despite them. You belong to the second category, and that is why the Bazhir respect you, even though we are aware that you dislike and distrust us."
"I was in the command tent the day that Jabalah ibn Himayat, leader of the Bazhir warriors, sent a basket of pomegranates to King Jasson, who was trapped in bed with gout," Martin said, somehow determined to prove that he could acknowledge an occasional, mysterious act of mercy from the otherwise pitiless tribesmen. "They were the fiercest of enemies, but they shared an understanding and esteem for one another."
"That's why King Jasson granted his request for a Bazhir to serve as steward of this castle." Ali nodded, his expression distant. "But the man who will replace me will bring a permanent peace and unity between our peoples. I won't live to see Bazhir and northern men fighting side by side, but you will, my lord."
"I'll believe it when I see it," Martin snorted, thinking that the Bazhir and the northerners were doomed to hate and fight each other until the end of the world.
"You will." Ali's tone and eyes were enigmatic, so Martin couldn't figure out whether the other man intended the words as a defiant challenge or a reassuring promise.