Many Changes

"You're not serious..." Khaled breathed, staring at Nasir as though he had suddenly suggested conversion to Judaism.

"The moment you have a better plan, I invite you to share it."

They stood alone at the edge of the encampment, the last prayer of the day only just finished. Khaled bore a tired smile from his long night and day in the arms of Zainab, his hair wet and curly from a very recent bath. The look, Nasir thought with a weary sort of envy, that all new husbands wore.

"Ah...Nasir? Have you considered that we would be missed by the men?"

"I have. If both of us were to go, we certainly would be missed. That is why I propose to go alone. The Sultan cannot, of course. But I can."

"You're just as well-known as he is. You've already sent the runners as he asked. What more do you expect to accomplish by going to the neighboring kingdoms in person? If word of Rana is found by the messengers, they will bring it back to our master with all swiftness."

"And by then it may be too late, Khaled! You have not spent the amount of time with him that I have! He is dying without her."

"Do not be dramatic."

"I am not. He eats less than it would take to keep a bird alive and he has not rested in three days. He paces the area behind the tents all night, never letting anyone near him in his grief. The whispers have started. You know they have."

Khaled stole a sidelong glance at the foot soldiers clustered about the cook-fire, watching the way they put their heads together and talked in low voices. He didn't like it one bit. The downfall of all of them could come in a heartbeat if anything were to threaten the unity and devotion of the army. He turned away, motioning Nasir to follow him. Together they began walking out across the oasis, the faint pink light of the setting sun warming their left shoulders.

"I had thought that Aisha..."

"Would what? Would fill the void left by Rana? One slave is as good as another? I would have thought you capable of greater understanding, Khaled. You used to care for Rana."

"I still do! Do not imply that you and Salahuddin are the only ones who are in pain over her disappearance!"

"Then do not behave as though we were."

"Your rashness had nearly been the end of you a thousand times, Nasir! This may yet be the true end, running off across the desert to the kingdoms of our enemies with nothing but your sword and your temper!"

"Then come up with something better. I'm waiting."

"Second in command! Second only to the Sultan, damn it! Are you mad?!"

Nasir did not reply, but the set of his jaw showed his anger and determination. Khaled suddenly stopped, turning slowly to look at this man whom he barely tolerated most of the time.

"Nasir?"

"What."

Khaled tested the words he was about to say a few times in his head, silently. But there seemed to be no delicate way to put the thought.

"Are you aware of what it is you're proposing?"

"Enlighten me, Wise One," Nasir said sarcastically, "I haven't had the pleasure of your opinion in a full twelve hours."

Khaled's voice softened, his anger and annoyance ebbing away as the full realization began to dawn on him.

"Nasir, you are about to risk your life to find the woman that you love."

"A thing any man would do if he were worthy of the name."

"Any man would rush off to find his beloved, yes. That is true." Khaled admitted, "But I know of no man who would do this thing simply to deliver her into the arms of someone else."

Nasir opened his mouth to speak, but something seemed to be stopping him. He ran a hand over his beard, looking past Khaled and into the sunset. It was a noble kind of agony, the ache that showed plain in his eyes, and for a moment Khaled respected him more than he ever had before.

"I...must confess something to you, Khaled. Something I have never told anyone."

"It is my duty to hear your words and repeat them to no one. Speak freely."

"My mother's village was decimated by Fatimid warriors when I was eleven. She escaped with me and we hid together in the scrub until the worst of the fighting was over. I tried not to weep...but I had seen my father killed before my very eyes and he had been my mentor and my hero as well as my father. You understand?"

Khaled, who had always felt an extreme level of tension with his own father, simply nodded in a noncommittal fashion. After a moment, Nasir continued.

"We spent days traveling through the desert. I was a boy who had spent a great deal of time playing in the most inhospitable places, pretending that I was a deposed prince trying to survive in the wilderness. I knew how to cut open the cactus and find the water. I knew what roots and mosses were good to eat. I could set snares and build shelter and find my path by the stars. All these things helped to save our lives, and in time we came to a place not far from Aleppo. My mother's injuries, sustained in the battle, threatened to kill her with the added difficulty of travel. I feared for her life every time we stopped to rest. When she lay down to sleep and I tended a fire beside her, I was always terrified that she would not awaken." He stared off into that hazy pink sunset, not seeing it, his eyes looking through the veil of years and beholding again the sleeping form of the woman in blood-stained robes and the skinny little boy beside her, too small in his father's shirt.

"Did she die, then?" Khaled asked softly. Nasir turned to look at him.

"She did." he answered, "But not before she whispered to me what my destiny should be. She told me that she had been married only seven months before my birth, and that the man I knew as my father was not truly so. I was shocked. Such things did not happen in our village. I asked her who my true father was, and she told me of the night so long ago when she had been carrying water to the soldiers of Nur ad-Din camped beside the village. A young man was with them, a wild-looking man with black eyes who followed her into the darkness and whispered soft foreign words in her ear. She was captivated by him as she had never been before. She was already betrothed at the time, but she said that it made no difference to her suddenly that night, that she forgot her duties and her honor and her place. She forgot everything except those dark eyes and that soft voice. That night was the night upon which I was conceived."

Khaled found himself suddenly rigid with anticipation, his whole countenance stilled by the power of Nasir's revelation. It was a dark and lurid tale, unquestionably salacious. But after spending a night and a day in the arms of a creature out of myth, he now believed that the world was a far stranger and more unpredictable place than he had ever imagined.

"Does she know who it was?"

"Of course. She sent me to find him and serve him if I could." Nasir said wearily.

"But did you ever find...oh Nasir...oh God..." Khaled put a hand to his forehead and took a step back. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

But he looked hard at Nasir.

And there it was.

His cheekbones, the curve of his upper lip, his earlobes. The way he walked. Even a certain tone in his voice that was completely like his father's. And it made sense. It all made sense. The deference Nasir showed him and the undying loyalty. The way he backed out so quickly from the tense vying for Rana's hand. Nasir was Salahuddin's illegitimate son.

Khaled found his voice again somehow.

"Does he know?"

Nasir didn't answer right away. He looked back again to where the bright disk of the sun had just vanished completely below the horizon.

"Of course not." he finally said.

"Why? Don't you think he'd want to know?"

"Leave it, Khaled. I will not tell him and you will not either. I have no desire to be sent to far lands with the rest of his family to protect me from some vicious foe or other. My place is here and that is all. Do not meddle like an old woman."

"Ah…" Khaled waved the insult away dismissively with his hand. But he said no more on the subject.

After a time, Nasir turned again to look at the mullah. The moon was rising in a nest of cobwebbed clouds, and a chill wind was blowing. There would be full dark soon. Time for decision and action, time for movement.

"I did not call you here to ask your permission. I am leaving this night to find Rana or die trying. Without her, our master fades. I will not allow this to happen."

Khaled sighed explosively.

"You have to remain here, curse and damn you! You are more necessary than I!" And so saying, he began to stride purposefully back into the camp, Nasir following at a trot.

"What are you saying?!"

Khaled said nothing, a muscle twitching in his jaw. They reached the corral in which the horses rested, and Khaled opened the gate and went in to fetch his horse. Nasir watched, stunned, as the irritated holy man tossed about with his saddle and blanket, preparing the gorgeous Arabian mare for journey.

"You…you intend to go yourself?"

"There is nothing for it, Nasir. Second in command of the armies that are going to take back what is ours, trying to rush off on some futile errand! You stay here!" Khaled said hotly, but without true malice. Nasir saw the look in his eyes and the determination in his movements and a ghost of a smile crossed his features.

"You do care, after all! Don't fail us, Khaled. Find her and bring her back, no matter how many people you have to kill in the process. I know you're no warrior, but try to pretend."

Khaled mounted, pulling up the hood of his cloak. As his mare careened by, tangle-hoofed in her delight at the prospect of a mad run, he called back three heartfelt words to Nasir.

They were not complimentary.