The Healer's Warrior

by Lewin, Renee

  After Tareq rubbed the other earlobe and stepped back, he looked at her in quiet admiration for a moment.

  “Tareq, my services are free,” she breathed.

  “Ah, but they are priceless to so many people.” He took Jem’ya’s hand and gently kissed the top of it, letting his lips linger on her soft dark skin. Then Tareq tugged down on the camel’s reins. “Down,” he barked. The camel batted its long lashes and kneeled, folding its legs beneath itself. Jem’ya ran her hand along the camel’s soft white neck as Tareq climbed onto its back.

  Jem’ya smiled. “Goodbye, Handsome.”

  “Thank you,” Tareq grinned.

  She giggled. “I was talking to the camel.”

  “Of course you were.” He winked. “God be with you, Jem’ya.”

  Jem’ya nodded. “Thank you.”

  Tareq clicked his tongue and the camel stood and began its pace.

  A smile on her face and a blush on her cheeks, Jem’ya went back towards her house and sat in a chair under the shade of the roof. She glanced at the diminishing sight of Tareq riding away and suddenly began to weep. She wiped at her face and looked down at the tears on her fingers in shock. A terrible sob escaped her mouth. She buried her face in a handful of her skirt. It felt like her whole life was out of balance, like something that was once full inside her had become empty. Maybe she should have never left her family in Tikso: Mama, Papa, her older brother Kibwe, her new niece and her nephew, her half siblings, her grandparents, her aunts and uncles and cousins, her tribal brothers and sisters…Everyone.

  She needed to feel the renewing warmth of her family’s love again. After two years, Jem’ya knew it was finally time to take a trip back home.

  It was getting harder and harder to ride away from the paradise Jem’ya had created on the Coast. Jem’ya’s home brought Tareq such peace. There was such a confident, calm energy emanating from her that it soothed him just to see her face. He had searched three years for someone who could make the pain cease. He had been made ill by countless failed remedies and wasted a small fortune on the claims of witch doctors.

  When he finally found Jem’ya it was an incredible relief. He was disappointed some mornings when he woke up in the palace rather than in Jem’ya’s healing room. She was gentle but powerful, dedicated and selfless. She made him smile. He chuckled, thinking of the way she touched at her brow when she was nervous and the endearing way her small half-moon ears stuck out. And she had those dark sultry eyes.

  He wanted to take her to bed, true, but any man would. His brows wrinkled. Anyways, Jem’ya was a commoner so he would never allow himself to get involved with a woman of such low status. His father had fallen for a commoner, Tareq’s mother, and his weakness for her had destroyed the man’s soul.

  Tareq sighed at the brown, rocky desert and rough hills before him. He cursed the camel’s slow speed when on his way to the Coast but never complained on his way back to Samhia. There was nothing but stress waiting for him there. His father was dying and the greedy bastard was being more controlling than ever. Their kingdom was falling apart under the strain of his father’s insatiable need for constant expansion.

  Tareq was a bit resentful of his destiny. He was only next in line to the throne by default. His older brother Qadir had no couth or sense of responsibility and would surely let Samhia fall to a civil war under his drunken watch.

  Everything fell to Tareq now.

  Sometimes he thought that, if he had the choice, he’d leave it all behind and live the simple life of a farmer. The farmers envious of his riches had no idea the insanity of one day being responsible for millions of lives. Tareq’s heart and mind were pulled in so many directions every day. It was a torment that could only be endured by dulling one’s sympathy.

  But he didn’t have a choice. He would be king. Samhia was his home. He could not see it fall.

  A five hour journey brought Tareq to the town of Eulid. It was one of over two hundred Samhian dominions. Like so many of his father’s territories, Eulid was a liability. The taxes collected from the small population were nothing compared to the amount of money put into it over the years. Aqueducts were built, roads carved out, farming equipment and seeds were bought, and a Samhian governor and small warrior force were appointed. The King soon found out what the locals already knew: the land was unproductive.

  If his father had paid any attention to the Eulid culture and seen how talented they were as coppersmiths and camel trainers, he could have encouraged and developed those resources and profited. But all the King saw was that more land plus more people meant more taxes he could collect. Greedy fool.

  Eulid was built in the shadow of crumbling red-brown mountains. The people made their homes from its stones, building their houses between the tall palm trees. Tareq pulled off his head covering as he rode into the shaded town.

  Passersby bowed to him as he rode past. He kept his eyes straight, in the direction of the stables, sharply aware that not meeting the people’s eyes made him seem very full of himself. The truth was it made him uncomfortable to be revered when he’d accomplished little that was commendable.

  “Amir!” he called out.

  The wiry old man came out of the stables as quickly as he could. One of his legs had been broken during an accident many years ago involving a spooked horse. Amir rushed out tottering on his stiff right leg and bowed to Tareq while holding his little brown cap on his head. “At your service, Prince Tareq.” Amir straightened, smiled showing the few teeth he had left, and took the white camel’s reins. He tugged gently on the bridle and the camel lowered itself to the ground.

  “Thank you,” Tareq said as he dismounted.

  As Amir hurriedly began to undo the belts of the saddlebags, Tareq went to pat the camel on the head.

  “I’m sorry I was rough with you. Goodbye, Handsome.”

  “Pardon?” Amir asked.

  Tareq chuckled, shaking his head. “Nothing, Amir.” He stepped back from the camel as it stood and Amir led it to the stables.

  Amir returned leading Sultan behind him, Tareq’s powerful black stallion. Sultan whinnied when he saw Tareq. His big dark eyes brightened and his thick black tail rose high. Tareq smiled and scratched Sultan’s back. Sultan stretched and neighed again. Tareq knew Amir always took good care of Sultan. The horse’s ebony coat was shiny from meticulous brushing.

  Tareq paid Amir, tipping him well, and then stepped into the stirrup and climbed atop his favorite horse. “’Till next time, Amir.” Tareq tapped Sultan’s massive sides with his heels and they galloped off.

  In an hour’s time, Sultan was carrying Tareq through the congested throughways of the capital city of Samhia. Tareq pulled on his hood so as not to be recognized. The avenues bustled with midday activity. The air roared with the conversation of hundreds of merchants, barterers, butchers, lenders, clothiers, food vendors and customers.

  Customers complained about high prices and sellers complained about excessive taxes. Rich old men slurped hot strong coffee in smoky tearooms and grumbled about the declining economy. Feeble beggarwomen offered bouquets of flowering weeds at any price. Two warrior guards chased a young scruffy boy who’d stolen a fistful of pistachios. A sword-wielding guard was stationed every twenty feet to control the recent spike in shoplifting and pick pocketing.

  A trader displayed three black African men and one woman for sale, touting their strength and longevity. A small crowd of men in clean, pressed tunics fingered their beards and eyed the naked slaves indecisively. Tareq’s skin began to burn with indignation. The slave trade and the use of slave labor were first on his list of practices to outlaw when he became the new king. But for now he had to stomach it and not make a scene. Tareq’s dream was to inherit the kingdom and restructure it into a prosperous paradise. The anticipation was the only thing that kept him getting out of bed every morning for the last few years. If word got back to the King that Tareq had been anything but ruthless, the muddled man might decide to allow Qadir to rule
instead. Tareq loved his older brother but he knew Qadir could not handle the gravity of that role.

  Finally, Sultan was trotting up the sloped path to the Samhizzan palace. The palace was built on top of a hill, high enough so that from Tareq’s third story bedroom you could see the roads that led in all directions, like spokes, from the capital. North to the sea, west to the ocean, south to the mountains and plains, and further east into the desert stretched the Samhian reign.

  The entrance gate was an eighteen feet tall, three feet thick stone double door that took six men to open and close. The doors were decorated with gleaming gold cobras and stars, and two giant silver castings of the King’s stern face. A horse keeper and two servant boys met Tareq within the gates. Tareq dismounted and gave Sultan to the horse keeper and told the boys to take the contents of his bags ahead to his room.

  The palace was surrounded by giant palms and large fountains. Tareq removed his hood and walked towards the open front doors. From the outside, the sprawling stone citadel was just one long, four-story rectangular building with a flat roof and dozens of arched windows with balconies. The real beauty of the palace was inside.

  Its one hundred rooms were lavishly decorated with fine rugs, tapestries, lamps and furniture, all in white or red and gold. The polished ceilings were domed and intricately carved and the floors were brown and white marble. Archways and columns were built throughout.

  Tareq’s footsteps echoed in the long hallways. He nodded at the servants when they paused their furious cleaning and dusting to bow to him. Up the winding staircase and down another long corridor he passed the closed door of his father’s room and then came to his own room where the items of clothing and weaponry that were in the saddlebags were already sitting on the chair by the balcony.

  Ready for a shower, he walked past his big white canopy bed and into the bathing room. A wide, blue-tiled sunken tub was to the right and a shower room was to the left. He pulled the call bell string that hung outside the shower and began pulling off his black robes.

  Immediately he heard the movement of a servant overhead dragging a large bucket of water to fill the shower’s reservoir upstairs. Soon a steady stream of steaming water began to pour from a spout in the ceiling of the shower room. He preferred to bathe and shower with very hot water to ease his body aches, though nothing did the trick like Jem’ya’s skillful hands.

  Clean and wrapped in a towel he went to his closet to pick out clothes. Tareq did not like to be fussed over the way his father and brother did, both of whom loved being washed, dressed and primped by their many maidservants. Tareq had only one maidservant, Bahja, an older woman who’d been his maidservant since birth and who he regarded as his aunt. He tried not to ask her for too much, but admittedly he was short with her once in a while. Bahja understood that stress, frustration and persistent pain eroded his patience at times.

  Clothed in dark brown pants and a belted white tunic shirt, he left for the Council’s afternoon briefing. Coming down the hall was Qadir in a long orange tunic. He was shuffling his feet as if he’d just woken up. It was after three. Tareq was half surprised that there wasn’t already a goblet of wine in the man’s hand. Rules about drinking alcohol in the King’s palace were nonexistent, though the King portrayed himself in public as a perfect Muslim. Tareq and Qadir weren’t exemplary Muslims either. They shaved their beards and they drank, among other things.

  “Is he dead yet?” Tareq asked casually as they stopped to converse.

  “I’m afraid not,” Qadir sighed. “Back from a visit to your special lady?” he smiled, his dark brown eyes glistening with mischief.

  The two brothers were four years apart in age and nothing alike. Tareq was 26 and Qadir would be 30 by years’ end. Qadir was tall and thin, had straight, dark brown hair that he kept cut low, brown eyes, thick straight eyebrows, thin lips, the King’s rounded nose, and golden skin.

  Tareq was shorter and muscular. His medium length hair was jet black with loose waves and curls like their late mother’s and he also had her fair skin. His brows were thinner and his mouth shapely. His eyes were hazel like the King’s and his nose straight.

  Their personalities were equally dissimilar.

  “She is not my lady. She is my healer,” Tareq corrected.

  “You walk so straight and proud when you come back from her, as if you’ve spent all night between her legs,” Qadir smirked. The only change in Tareq’s reserved expression was a slight raise of his eyebrows. “I see you are not amused. I find that very telling,” his older brother laughed.

  Tareq chuckled. He couldn’t win.

  “My head and neck are both aching.” Qadir grimaced and massaged the back of his neck. “Do you mind if I see your special lady?” He raised an eyebrow, teasing.

  “She heals the ill not the hung-over.”

  Qadir laughed, unashamed. “I agree that you are the ill one, little brother, not I. Any man uninterested in sowing his wild oats can’t be well.”

  “There are more important things in life than falling for women’s manipulations, however pleasurable the release.”

  “So wise!” Qadir bellowed. “You are really too serious, my brother,” he grinned.

  Tareq thought to defend himself by saying he hadn’t been so serious this morning at the Coast, but figured more talk of Jem’ya would only compel Qadir to make another quip. “Somebody has to be sober around here.”

  Qadir laughed and absently licked his lips a bit, thinking of wine. He clapped Tareq on the shoulder with one hand and grasped Tareq’s forearm with the other. “Take care, Tareq.”

  Tareq squeezed Qadir’s forearm. He noticed the tremble in his older brother’s hands. “Take better care of yourself, Qadir,” he replied, then continued towards the meeting room.

  Tareq worried about his brother every day. He drank all the time and was too often carried to bed after passing out in his private harem or brought home from opium dens. Still, Tareq could not bring himself to be angry at him. He had his own harmful ways of coping, too. They had different ways of dealing with the incredible trauma and grief after their mother’s death. Qadir went after pleasure, chasing highs to get over the lows. Tareq kept every emotion outside of anger suppressed and controlled to make others stay at a distance and to keep hidden the doubts and anxieties that too often threatened his reason.

  Tareq sat at the head of the long, polished table. It seated all twenty-five councilmen. One by one, each councilman stood and reported the status of his district, which was almost always bad news: instances of bribery, livestock disease, failed crops, food shortages, rising army expenses, poverty, crime, religious clashes, outbreaks of illness, damaged infrastructure, lost communication with a new acquisition, etcetera. The King, who did not want to be seen in his pitiful condition, was in the next room listening.

  Even though Tareq had no power to make decisions on the matters of the kingdom, he wanted to stay informed for when the time came, so he attended the council meetings.

  Unfortunately, the King still had the strength in his dying body to give his usual answer to the councilmen, which was recited by his spokesman: increase army presence and raise taxes to cover it. He also ordered a squadron be sent down to investigate the Cambe settlement whose governor and officials no one had heard from in four days. Tareq announced that he would lead the squadron as he’d done in the past. The King agreed.

  Anticipating the possibility of warfare in Cambe, Tareq decided to go to the palace gymnasium to do combat exercises with his trainer. Tareq knew that having the muscle mass that he did meant nothing in battle if he didn’t have balance, agility, speed and endurance. He was not a kept prince that liked to sit on his ass and grow fat being hand-fed by serfs. He was a warrior prince and a commander. He proudly fought in battle alongside his brave countrymen.

  He’d wounded men before. He’d killed before. But he wasn’t like some of his men who got satisfaction from seeing their opponents die. He did not go to battle thirsting to kill another h
uman being. It was the fight that he loved. It was the danger of it and the feeling of his heart drumming in his chest and the adrenaline in his veins enlivening his body and mind.

  He’d wanted to die. That’s how it started, that’s what made him volunteer that first time to lead a squadron to a rebellious territory. He was 17 years old and so empty and sick in his heart that it seemed like the best way to end his life, since committing suicide would only give the King the satisfaction of proof that his son really was as weak as he’d always accused.

  Tareq found out during training that the other warriors couldn’t let him die in battle. They had sworn to protect the King and his family with their lives. Still, he had enjoyed the combat training and decided he would continue to lead the squadron.

  When he went to battle for the first time it was like nothing he’d ever felt before. He was hooked immediately. Within the chaos and desperation at the battleground he was able to release his own inner chaos and desperation. For a few days after every battle he remained drained and serene. He was untouchable. Nothing, not even his father, could upset him, nor could anything interest or excite him. But the numbing shield always faded eventually, and soon after he took up the terrible, bloody sport was when the chronic pain began.

  Tareq practiced sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat exercises until his white shirt and his jet black hair became drenched with sweat and stuck to his hot skin. His shoulders and legs throbbed from mild pain.

  He retired to his room where he soaked in a hot bath. Then he got dressed and had Bahja bring dinner. Wearing her powder blue headscarf and a spacious white dress over her plump body, Bahja brought Tareq plates of grilled lamb, sautéed greens and savory couscous. There was cool water to drink, and, for dessert, honeyed porridge with dates.

  Tareq grinned. “Thank you, Auntie. That’s just what I wanted.”

  “You’re welcome, my prince,” she smiled and lowered her green eyes. She lifted them again to watch his eager eating. “How was your visit to the healer? Good?”