Chapter 2

January 16th, TA 3019

Harun was drunk. Again.

A despicable habit if there ever was one for a man of his rank and yet, no matter the antipathy that Anwar now felt towards him, he could hardly begrudge the man a means of consolation in the face of a most probable death.

They'd reached the Oasis of Mastaba a few days past, abusing Emir Waheed's hospitality by eating his food and drinking his wine while the reinforcements gradually reached them. Upon seeing their numbers mass on the horizon – the halberdiers, the archers, and even the slow, peaceful Mûmakil, their lumbering silhouettes harnessed with banners, war towers strapped to their wide backs – the implication of what was about to happen had struck Anwar at last. This was no squabble against the savages of Near Harad, where a battalion of swordsmen often sufficed to scatter the enemy beyond the dunes, nor was it one of the rare and speedy attacks of a rogue Corsair captain, when the fight was over before it even began. This was a war at a scale never yet seen, which could only have one outcome: the utter destruction of one of the two sides.

Thinking of Djamila, back in Jufayrah, Anwar vowed it would not be his.

And if, to ensure it, he had to tolerate the dissolute manners of Sheikh Dawoud's heir, then so be it. There would be time to have a quiet talk with Harun after the war, from one man to another, and explain what exactly would happen if he ever subjected his sister to such depravity.

"Let's drink to our wives." One of the men – Emir Waheed's second son, Khalil – raised his cup towards the ceiling of the large tent that had been set up in front of Emir's house to accommodate his guests and the abundance of victuals they consumed day after day. "May they grow fat and beautiful in our absence!"

A round of cheers erupted throughout the assembly, the rest of the men pumping their fists and now empty goblets into the air, those of them already too inebriated to realize they'd not finished drinking spilling wine over their neighbor. Namely Anwar himself, who brushed the droplets from his tunic with a grimace of disgust, eyeing the man on his left – the Sheikh Dawoud himself – with barely veiled contempt.

Some nameless warrior rose to his feet, at one of the tables further down the alley that separated the tent into two, running from the platform where the table of honor stood and at which Anwar sat, down to the entrance, through which the servants came in carrying large dishes of lamb tajine. His shaven head, and the ritual scars upon his face, marked him as one of the Mûmak riders. "And to the women we'll find in the North!" he called out before downing the contents of his cup.

"I've heard their skin's as pale and white as an onion's," someone else echoed him.

And yet another voice added: "I wonder if they smell the same, too!"

It was as though they'd forgotten that a woman had birthed them, fed them and weaned them. That a woman had blown over their cuts and scrapes, and wiped away their tears. The next gulp of wine tasted sour to Anwar, tainted by the guffaws that filled the tent. They'd not been as proud, not so long ago, when they'd needed a woman to look after them…and still did. Anwar had known many of these men since they were boys; he knew how much they revered their mothers, how they begged for their presence in their darkest moments, and even stood on the brink of death with their names upon their lips. In their absence, however, and the rush of adrenalin brought on by liquor and impending bloodshed, such love turned into a weakness, and a shameful thing to hold on to. Anwar read admiration on the face of the Emir's lastborn, a boy of eight, as he poured him his wine, listening in to their jests and their bragging. He would remember this moment as one of glory, instead of seeing it for what it really was.

Further down his own table, one of his own cousins, Mounir, sprung from his seat, his kohl smudged with sweat and laughter. "I might even cry when I…."

The crude imitation that followed had more than one man cough up his drink, in glee for the most part. Anwar slammed down his cup, intending to shut the insolent up and remind him of the respect he owed to his mother, but Harun was faster.

"If you weep for a woman," he snarled, "you are no true man."

Mounir scowled and opened his mouth to retort, but was cowed into silence by Harun's hateful glare. Even Anwar, who sat beside Harun in the place of honor, repressed a shiver at the loathing that coalesced in his eyes.

"We, men," Harun continued in a low, growling voice, his words slurred by his excessive consumption of wine, "were made by the One, and it's the One himself who has granted us the strength to seize what we desire." Thus speaking he closed his fist, the protective leather straps wrapped around his palm creaking as he did so. "The lands, the riches…the women. To sow our seed wherever we want. Why else would he have made the women to be ever fertile, if not for us to decide when and where to take them?"

"Your wife is a lucky one, for sure," Khalil chortled, breaking the tension that had accumulated as Harun spoke. The men cheered half-heartedly, returning to their plates and their cups, the hum of conversations swelling anew.

Harun looked at Anwar. "She will be. I know how to treat a woman in the way the One intended me to. I'll show her her place, and she'll be thankful for it."

His eyes gleamed with the eagerness to earn Anwar's approval. Startled by its intensity, Anwar narrowed his eyes, refusing to agree and yet unwilling to further fuel Harun's ire. The man was a mean drunk, it seemed and, prince or no, lest he wished to offend their host and Sheikh Dawoud both by coming to blows with his future brother, he ought to keep his mouth shut.

Perhaps had he had too much to drink as well?

Though his skin crawled, his entire being revulsed at the idea of this man ever laying a hand upon Djamila, Anwar took a deep breath, trying to reason with himself. More than one good but frightened man had been known to turn into someone else under the effect of his fear. Perhaps was Harun simply scared, or intimidated, boasting before his prince to gain his favor?

After all who was he, Anwar, to judge, living under the weight of others' expectations?

He, better than anyone, knew how dire his father's situation was. Years of successive droughts had driven the realm to its knees, the royal treasury spent in the Sultan's efforts to feed his people. Another dry summer, and they'd be forced to beg their neighbors for aid – the same neighbors they had driven into the desert a few years past, something that his father would never recover from. No matter what those of his advisers who were the One's most ardent believers preached, this war was less sacred than the commonfolk had been led to believe. The North had resources and water aplenty; Anwar had even been taught that it just lay upon mountaintops, waiting to be plucked. If the campaign was a success, then Harad would hold its chance to rise from the edge of poverty it now teetered upon. And to achieve that, they needed men. Provisions. Horses and Mûmaks must be watered, and to convey something far more precious than gold far away from the coast, along the road towards Gondor, cost a fortune.

Sheikh Dawoud could ensure that, and more. But his help came with a price.

"Hey, listen. I…I have a joke."

As though having guessed his misgivings, Harun's glum face broke into a sudden smile. Acknowledging him with a nod, Anwar reached for his cup once more, hiding his unease in his drink.

"It's about a girl asking her mother: ummi, in the long years that you and Father have been married, I've never heard you raise your voice against him, or even complain. He's taken many concubines, and even bedded women outside of wedlock, and yet you served him his breakfast in the morning with a smile. Why is that?"

The other men at their table had turned towards him to listen and even Mounir, who'd been glowering back at Harun ever since his outburst, had stopped chewing furiously at a piece of lamb to better hear the rest of the joke. Relishing the attention he was receiving, Harun leaned forward, unfurling his right hand to lay it flat upon the table, next to his plate.

"The woman replies: my sweet daughter, let me tell you a story." He swayed slightly, squinting at his hand. "When I had just married your father, he brought me back to his house on horseback. As we were crossing the steppes, the horse stumbled, causing your father to spill the drink he was sipping from his flask. "One," he had said, and naught more." Harun punctuated the count with a slap of his hand that send the cutlery jumping into the air. "In the morrow, the horse had stumbled again. "Two," your father had said."

Anwar had never heard this one before. So far, the suspense was a pleasant one and the joke, harmless, if too drawn-out. Perhaps he'd been right about Harun being nervous, he thought, allowing himself to relax against the back of his chair.

"I'd wanted to ask him what he meant by it, until the horse stumbled a third time," Harun kept talking as the men held their breath. "Your father dismounted. "Three," he said, and beheaded the horse in one strike of his blade."

Anwar flinched as Harun embedded his knife into the table. He hadn't noticed him grasp it, all the more disturbed by such stealth in someone so drunk. The men jumped, some of them reaching for the weapons they'd left outside the tent in a means of avoid any deaths should a drunken brawl erupt, as it was bound to happen sooner or later.

The expensive cloth of brocade ripped as Harun pulled the blade towards him, the crimson fabric parting in the likeness of blood. He grinned, watching the assembly's bewilderment with something akin to lust in his eyes. ""Are you mad?" I'd cried," he sniveled in a mockery of a woman's high-pitched voice, "now we have to walk all the way home!"

Abandoning all hope to finish his meal, his appetite erased by the men's sniggers, Anwar wiped his hands on the silk napkin yet spared by Harun's antics. He longed for the fresh air of the desert night, the rustle of olive trees by the pond and the glimmer of stars over his head. Uncaring about the discourtesy of his gesture, he threw the napkin onto his plate and stood.

The last thing he heard before the tent flaps closed behind him were the last words of Harun's joke: "And then your father said: "One.""

A.N.: believe it or not, the 'joke' is actually one I've heard in real life.