LITMIR.BIZ

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the desert, sometimes bleak with its ancient rums, sometimes golden and studded with oases, stretched inland for many miles, before meeting the foothills of snow-capped mountains that captured the rain clouds and forced them to deliver their burden in the rich valleys. It was a land of magic and plenty and a rich and diverse heritage.

      But it was also a land of tribal rivalries and not infrequent skirmishes. Because the king had the ancient blood of the Quraishi kings in his veins, no one challenged his right to the throne, but many of the tribal chieftains whom he ruled were in constant jealousy over their lands and rights against the others.

      One day, the king of this land fell in love with a foreign woman. Promising her that he would never take another wife, he married her and made her his queen. This beloved wife gave him two handsome sons. The king loved them as his own right hand. Crown Prince Zaid and his brother were all that he could wish for in his sons—handsome, noble, brave warriors, and popular with his people. As they attained the age of majority, the sheikh could look forward to his own death without fear for his country, for if anything should happen to the Crown Prince, his brother Aziz would step into his shoes and be equally popular with the people and equally strong among the tribes.

      Then one day, tragedy struck the sheikh and his wife. Both their sons were killed in the same accident. Now his own death became the great enemy to the old man, for with it, he knew, would come certain civil war as the tribal chieftains vied for supremacy.

      His beloved wife understood all his fears, but she was by now too old to hope to give him another heir. One day, when all the rituals of mourning were complete, the queen said to her husband, “According to the law, you are entitled to four wives. Take, therefore, my husband, three new wives, that God may bless one of them with a son to inherit your throne ”

      The sheikh thanked her for releasing him from his promise. A few weeks later, on the same day so that none should afterwards claim supremacy, the sheikh married three beautiful young women, and that night, virile even in his old age, he visited each wife in turn, no one save himself knowing in which order he visited them. To each wife he promised that if she gave him a son, her son would inherit the throne of Barakat.

      The sheikh was more virile than he knew. Each of his new wives conceived, and gave birth, nine months later, to a lusty son. And each was jealous for her own son’s inheritance. From that moment the sheikh’s life became a burden to him, for each of his new young wives had different reasons for believing that her own son should be named the rightful heir to the throne.

      The Princess Goldar, whose exotically hooded green eyes she had bequeathed to her son, Omar, based her claim on the fact that she herself was a descendant of the ancient royal family of her own homeland, Parvan.

      The Princess Nargis, mother of Rafi and descended from the old Mughal emperors of India, had in addition given birth two days before the other two wives, thus making her son the firstborn.

      The Princess Noor, mother of Karim, claimed the inheritance for her son by right of blood—she alone of the wives was an Arab of noble descent, like the sheikh himself. Who but her son to rule the desert tribesmen?

      The sheikh hoped that his sons would solve his dilemma for him, that one would prove more princely than the others. But as they grew to manhood, he saw that each of them was, in his own way, worthy of the throne, that each had the nobility the people would look for in their king, and alents that would benefit the kingdom were he to rule.

      When his sons were eighteen years old, the sheikh knew that he was facing death. As he lay dying, he saw each of his young wives in turn. To each of them again he promised that her son would inherit. Then he saw his three sons together, and on them he laid his last command. Then, last of all, he saw the wife and companion of his life, with whom he had seen such happiness and such sorrow. To her willing care he committed his young wives and their sons, with the assistance of his vizier, Nizam al Mulk, whom he appointed Regent jointly with her.

      When he died the old sheikh’s will was revealed: the kingdom was to be divided into three principalities. Each of his sons inherited one principality and its palace. In addittion, they each inherited one of the ancient Signs of Kingship.

      It was the will of their father that they should consult the Grand Vizier Nizam al Mulk for as long as he lived, and appoint another mutual Grand Vizier upon his death, so that none would have partisan advice in the last resort.

      Their father’s last command had been this: that his sons should never take up arms against each other or any of their descendants, and that his sons and their descendants should always come to each other’s aid in times of trouble. The sheikh’s dying curse would be upon the head of any who violated this command, and upon his descendants for seven generations.

      So the three princes grew to maturity under the eye of the old queen and the vizier, who did their best to prepare the princes for the future. When they reached the age of twenty-five, they came into their inheritance. Then each prince took his own Sign of Kingship and departed to his own palace and his own kingdom, where they lived in peace and accord with one another, as their father had commanded.

      One

      A black stallion, its tail tossing, galloped over the desert. Its hooves thundered against the hard sand, sending notice of its presence for miles on the silent air. His sweat-glossed sable coat glistened, and gold threads in the embroidered saddlecloth and gold studs in the black bridle were picked out by the rays of the early-morning sun just rising over the rugged white mountains in the distance.

      The tall, straight figure of the rider on its back seemed one with the graceful horse as the beast pounded towards a rushing, roaring river. The man’s hair, as black as the stallion’s pelt, waved thickly back from a high forehead, stirred by the wind of their speed. His slim, broad-shouldered body moved in rhythm with the horse as his knees urged it faster and faster, until it seemed that the rider intended to jump the river that now cut across the horse’s path.

      The feat would be impossible over the broad, wild torrent. Yet the man urged the horse on towards the wild rush of water, and the horse obeyed. At the last moment, just when it seemed as if its only choice was to dash itself and its rider into the churning waters, he pulled up. The horse reared and snorted; his forelegs danced on air and came to rest a few inches from the edge.

      On closer view, it could be seen that both the man’s hair and the horse’s mane were not completely black, but were threaded with strands of silver. The man’s broad, intelligent forehead was pulled into a frown over deep green, troubled eyes.

      They paused there, horse and rider, while the man scanned the horizon and the horse stamped and snorted nervously at the noisy river. The frowning eyes seemed to take no pleasure from the sight of the rugged expanse of desert turned golden by the rising sun, nor the vigorous blue-black of the chilly river that rushed by at his horse’s feet, nor the ferocious white-topped mountains in the distance. His small pointed beard and, moustache neatly framed a once-generous mouth that now seemed twisted with sorrow and bitterness. His eyes gazed across the river down towards the ocean, which he knew was there, in the distance, invisible, indistinguishable from the sky.

      His brother’s land. The river marked the boundary of the land his father had bequeathed to him. Everything he saw on the other side, including the miles of distant shoreline, belonged to one of his brothers. If he turned to ride west he would, after many miles, come to the border he shared with his second brother.

      His brothers. He had no brothers now. His father and mother were dead, his wife was dead, his brothers were lost to him. What did he have left in the world? A land of desert and mountain, much of it inhospitable, and even so, his right to rule over it was disputed by a fool who would stop at nothing to gain power. Two young daughters, whom he scarcely knew and could not love.

      He did not love anyone, he realized with the curious enlightenment that recognition of the obvious sometimes brings. He had loved his father, but his father was dead, and had betrayed him in death, leaving him this inhospitable land. If he had ever loved his mother, she had killed that love by her ignorant ambition for him. She had wanted him to be king, without ever thinking of his happiness, and she had destroyed

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