The Healer's Warrior

by Lewin, Renee

  Sharp gnashing teeth slick with saliva, bloodied hands and swords, loin cloths made of a victim’s robes, a dark smirk on a bearded face, and the screams. The shrieks clawed at Tareq’s mind. They rung in his ears, reverberating and amplifying until it all sounded like Jem’ya’s deafening wail for her dead brother. By the grace of Allah, Hakan’s voice came through.

  “Down, your Highness! At your right!”

  Tareq turned his face. The sight of the spear bulleting toward him cured him of the paralysis. He threw his upper body backwards in the saddle. The spear missed his throat, but it grazed his cheek as it zipped past. The close call enlivened Tareq with rage. His blood had never been spilled in battle before. He’d been bruised and sore from battles in the past, but never wounded. His eyes narrowed in on the rebel that threw the weapon. The warrior, a young man, stood at the edge of the combat zone, his chest heaving as he stared at Tareq with bloodshot eyes. As soon as Tareq pulled on Sultan’s rein, the warrior ran for a thicket of tall grass nearby. Tareq charged after him.

  Sultan galloped past the warfare and towards the offender, but the black warrior sprinted into the grass and was quickly hidden within the tall blades. Tareq brought Sultan to a sliding stop before the thicket and leapt down from the saddle, saif in hand. His lungs burned as he raced into the grass. He was immediately enveloped in the greenery. It was so thick he could not see where it ended. Tareq continued to sprint forward through the willowy grass, stalks crunching under his boots, and then eventually burst through to the clearing on the other side, in time to see the young warrior cutting across the plain.

  The ebony warrior looked over his shoulder to see Tareq still pursuing him. Determination was in the Arab’s light eyes, a lethal sword was in his hand, and his stamina was not waning. The gap between the two men was rapidly closing. The young man turned his focus to an Acacia tree twenty feet away.

  Tareq noticed the tribesman change his course, heading for the sole tree in the area. Tareq was not about to clamber up a tree. He would end this chase now. Tareq sped up his pace and dug his fingers into the rebel’s shoulder just as he was reaching for a low branch. He yanked the man backward. Tareq dropped to the ground after him and pinned him with a knee to his ribcage. Tareq raised his sword high, both hands white-knuckling the hilt. The tribesman squirmed, wide-eyed, and shouted a frightened plea in a language that was foreign to Tareq but sorely familiar. Tareq brought down the sword and screamed. “Raaaaaaah!”

  A quiet moment passed as Tareq stared down at the man’s tensed body.

  The tribesman opened his eyes. His reddened eyes round with shock, he looked from the sword to Tareq. He exhaled a staggered breath, not sure if he should be relieved yet.

  Tareq wrenched the sword out from the soft soil between the tree’s roots. He stood up and studied the tribesman, a man about Kibwe’s build and age. Tareq whirled his sword in one hand, contemplating. Then he rested the curved tip of the sword against the rebel’s quivering face. Tareq thought of slicing the man’s cheek to match his own. The memory of the brown-haired tribesman of Tikso holding his gushing cheek together hit Tareq.

  He couldn’t do it.

  Tareq lifted the sword, shoved it into the sheath at his hip and strode away. His eyes stung with anger and humiliation. He’d sat stupidly on his horse while the kingdom’s best soldiers fought the rebels. He was almost killed by a spear aimed for his jugular. He’d managed to become wounded, and then he couldn’t muster the motivation to punish the rebel responsible. He couldn’t bring himself to fight any of them. Tareq knew how important it was to the kingdom’s stability to make a lesson of these rebels. If upheaval carried on across the territories, Samhia would be destroyed. Destroyed before he could inherit it and finally prove to everyone that the motherless prince was not to be pitied, but respected as a better leader than his father. Still, his feelings were conflicted after the consequences of his last battle.

  Tareq spat at the ground. He would have to face everyone with the cut on his face a symbol of his weakness.

  Hakan was standing at the thicket and watched the rebel stand up and take off as Tareq walked away from the tree. “Prince Tareq? What happened?”

  Tareq walked past without a word. How could he explain to one of the greatest warriors Samhia had ever known that he could not fight? Tareq pushed through the grass and went to Sultan. With his eyes lowered to avoid the sight of the warfare or a soldier’s questioning eyes, Tareq climbed into the saddle. The long trip home provided Tareq lots of time to make sense of what had stricken him on the battlefield.

  Jem’ya spun gracefully in a circle as big as her cell would allow. She hummed a village song as she slowly danced alone. She was heartbroken, restless and bored. There were no patients for her to console and chat with. She couldn’t soothe herself with the beauty of the sea. She was so far away from her peace—mahsalom. Jem’ya started to sing the words aloud to drown out the beginning of a line of thoughts that had brought her to poisonous despair a hundred times already. If she was going to survive yet another 18 days in this cellar and return to her family, she had to be strong.

  “I know it was you, Jem’ya!”

  Jem’ya jumped and turned around to face the gate. She noticed the reddish scar on Tareq’s stubbly cheek. “What happened to your—?”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? I know you did it! You humiliated me in front of my soldiers!” Tareq was still in his armor. His jet black hair and tanned arms were damp with sweat and his face was flushed from being in the heat.

  Jem’ya squinted at Tareq and cocked her head to the side. She pointed from Tareq to herself. “You’re saying that I embarrassed you in front of some soldiers, but, as you can see, I have been locked in this cellar by you the entire time you were gone. So, yes, I do think you’re stupid! An extraordinary idiot, in fact!”

  Tareq smacked his palm against the metal gate. “If you can do that healing magic that you do, then I know you have other tricks up your sleeves. Voodoo! Witchery! Somehow, somehow, you got into my head. I couldn’t fight! I rode for five days into the desert to fight and instead I was trapped on my horse by your black magic and then almost killed! I couldn’t even stay for the remainder of the battle! Do you know what a bad impression that is on the Samhian warriors? Do you know that if word of this gets back to my father it could ruin everything?!”

  Jem’ya walked up to the gate. Her boldness made Tareq slow his breathing in anticipation of her next move. As Jem’ya stood in front of Tareq, she studied his face and savored his cautious observation. She was amused by his ignorant fear. Jem’ya smirked. She watched his hazel eyes linger on her lips and return to her gaze slightly softened. Her mouth soured.

  “I cannot torment you, Tareq. I can’t. Some days I wish so badly that I could,” she scowled. “I don’t possess the power of the Creator. That’s not how it works. The power possesses me. I am only a vessel. Perhaps guilt is what’s tormenting you. Hmm. You might just have a soul after all.”

  Tareq’s cheeks tinged pink at the realization that his behavior during the battle was completely his own doing. His mind had immobilized him to prevent another emotional agony like Tikso.

  “Tell me.” Jem’ya gripped the gate with both hands. “How is it that, after what you did to me and my family, you went out to slaughter yet another tribe?”

  Tareq looked down into Jem’ya’s fiery dark eyes. Their bodies were close, only separated by the gate. “They murdered all the Samhian officials and their families in Cambe. My soldiers and I had to bury the bodies of men, women and children. You didn’t see what these rebels did.”

  “Rebels? That’s what you call them?” Rage began to swell throughout Jem’ya’s body. “What are they rebelling against, Tareq? Could it be your arrogance? Your subjection? Your slaughter? How many freedom fighters did you cut down with your sword today?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Then why the hell were you there? To sit back and watch? Didn’t want
to get your hands dirty this time?!”

  Tareq was startled by her language. Her eyes were wet and her hands were shaking as her fingers gripped the metal and leather gate. She wouldn’t believe him if he told her that his heart was breaking to see her like this. After all the things he’d done, including the newest offense of accusing her of being a witch, he didn’t know what apology could make a difference. His words were so inadequate.

  If only he could hold her. Then she would feel that he thought about her every hour of the day, that he longed for her forgiveness more than anything, and that he cared for her so deeply that her rejection was driving him mad, yet he would be in much worse condition if she was not in his life at all.

  “Answer me,” Jem’ya demanded.

  “My father ordered the attack and—”

  “You couldn’t turn it down. You couldn’t, because you can’t resist the opportunity to prove to him and everyone else that you are a man, a man of power, stamping my people down so that you can stand above them, all in an effort to hide the fact that you are nothing. Worthless! Weak! A murderer yourself!”

  “Jem’ya!” Tareq shouted. He slammed his fist into a metal beam of the gate. Jem’ya didn’t flinch. “You are supposed to be my healer!” he accused. Tareq stood breathing hard, his stare intensified by emotional injury.

  Confused by the statement, Jem’ya laughed. “What do you mean?” But then the memories of how things once were between her and Tareq flooded her senses. They used to feel safest in each other’s company. They’d once made a promise never to hurt each other this way. Jem’ya gasped and started crying.

  Tareq’s heart fell. “Jem’ya, stop,” he pleaded in a whisper. He’d rather her berate him than cry.

  Jem’ya closed her eyes and tiredly shook her head. Her voice trembled with emotion and strained into a higher pitch. “I want it all back the way it was.”

  Me, too, Tareq wanted to say, but there was a lump in his throat. He reached out and put his hands over hers gripping the gate. He stroked her knuckles and the tops of her hands. Jem’ya allowed the contact for a few seconds. Then she opened her eyes, slowly slid her hands away from his and turned away. She lowered herself to her bed mat, curled up and lay there with her eyes open.

  Reluctantly, Tareq walked away and went to his room for a bath. He completed the aching task of removing his armor and clothing as the tub filled with near scalding water. As he submerged his pain-plagued body into the hot water, he knew that he could never again be a warrior for his father’s kingdom.

  “I’ve completed the will,” wheezed the King through cracked lips.

  Tareq was standing near the foot of the bed with his hands behind his back. He stared out the arched window beside the gold headboard to avoid looking into his father’s milky sunken eyes. Outside, the morning sun was rising. The moon was still visible, a small white lacy sphere against the bright blue sky.

  “You and your brother are both weak like your mother when it comes to alcohol. Drunks,” he sputtered.

  You’ve driven all of us to it.

  “But you are the lesser of two evils. Your brother has no self-control. He is addicted to gambling, liquor, opium and women. His genitals will soon rot off from disease, and a damaged brain is inevitable from abusing those substances. I’m surprised he hasn’t yet overdosed. I will not leave my life’s work to someone who will soon be a drooling—”

  The King was cut off by a coughing spell. One of his maids, Saidah, the daughter of Bahja’s niece, ran to his bedside and held a glass of water to his mouth. Saidah was twelve years old and unfortunately beautiful. Her pouty pink mouth and large gray eyes caught the attention of the King, and so from the age of nine she was one of his personal maids. The King struggled to sip the water between rattling coughs. Water dribbled down his chin and onto his red silk shirt. The little maid wiped the water from his yellowed beard with a section of her pristine white sleeve and returned to the corner of the room.

  The King continued. “I will not leave this kingdom to a drooling idiot. Qadir is indulgent and impulsive. He cannot be depended upon to carry on the bloodline. You are more mature, though you are often lazy and reclusive, taking your long baths and such.”

  Qadir is no worse than me and I am no better than him. I have never touched opium but he has never taken up a sword. He hurts no one, while I drag everyone into my misery. It is a shame that I can’t even tell you, father, what my baths are for. You’ve never had the capacity to empathize. It’s useless to explain myself. You’ve never cared to know anything about me.

  “And your visits to that black whore on the Coast are cause for concern.”

  Tareq’s gaze sliced away from the window to meet the King’s eyes. All at once, a thousand thoughts crashed together in Tareq’s mind and fell into a heap, leaving silence. What remained was the impulse to make certain the King never spoke again. Tareq started for the bed.

  A hand suddenly gripped his forearm. “Prince Tareq?” called a gentle voice. Distracted, Tareq glanced down into Saidah’s cherubic face framed by a white headscarf, but he was still moving toward the bed. She pressed her fingers more firmly into his arm. “Would you like a glass of water, Prince Tareq?” Saidah’s large gray eyes pleaded him. Tareq blinked, slowly emerging from the violent fixation. “Prince Tareq, is there anything I can get you?”

  Tareq finally shook his head. “No, Saidah. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Tareq nodded. “Yes.” Though it enraged Tareq to hear the King describe Jem’ya that way and to find out that the King had someone spying on him when he went to the Coast, at least the King did not know—or was pretending not to know—that Jem’ya was in the palace.

  Saidah nodded. The King glared at her as she scurried backward to her post in the corner of the room. She swallowed and lowered her eyes.

  The King coughed again. “I’m not too worried about the black girl, as long as she remains a secret so the situation does not become fodder for the public. I’m sure you have no plans to marry such a thing. After my unfortunate ordeal with your mother, I know that you have learned the lesson of marrying the right woman, no? I saw to it, did I not?” The King chuckled weakly at Tareq’s venomous expression. “After all these years you still protect Mariza?”

  “Until the day I die,” Tareq affirmed.

  The King smirked. “I hope you protect the memory of me just as naively.”

  Tareq looked away and gazed out the arched window again.

  “The princesses of Qamud have been vying for your favor since you were a teenage boy. They are very beautiful and either one would make an acceptable queen.”

  Tareq thought of the buxom brunette fraternal twins. The two were totally self-centered, loose, and uninteresting. Qadir had already slept with one of them, but Tareq always forgot which one. Qadir probably didn’t remember either.

  “Though the people of Samhia would be more trusting of you if you had a wife, I believe a wife would only be a distraction. I advise you to be familiar with the reigns of this kingdom before you consider taming a young bride. I see a lot of myself in you, Tareq.”

  Tareq cringed.

  “I think you will work hard to maintain Samhia as the great empire that I’ve created. Samhia reached no farther than this capital when I inherited it. It destroys me that you don’t have nearly the ambition that I have, but a beggar cannot be discriminatory. You and Qadir are what I’ve been given.” He gave a raspy sigh of dissatisfaction. The sigh triggered another fit of coughs. “Go,” the King croaked out between gasps. Saidah ran to the withering King’s aid.

  Tareq exited the stifling room. He took a deep, refreshing breath once he was out in the hall. As he headed for his private library, he considered the King’s insults. His father couldn’t speak longer than a minute without making sure to demean someone. The way that the man had spoken of Jem’ya had made something snap inside of Tareq. For years, Tareq had controlled his hatred for the King. Tareq was like an archer eyein
g a target, his arm straining to hold his drawn bowstring steady, waiting for the right time to release the arrow. It wasn’t easy to keep that bow drawn. Without Qadir, Bahja and the memory of his mother, Tareq would have assassinated the King by now.

  When the King spoke of Jem’ya, Tareq almost let the arrow fly. Jem’ya had urged Tareq many times to let go of his anger, to put down the bow, but to forgive the King was to betray his mother and his brother. Tareq felt a twinge in his stomach as he realized that for Jem’ya, forgiving him was to betray her brother, her family and her people.

  Tareq pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door to his study. He locked the door behind him. The table, water bowl, and oils were already set up. He removed all his clothes except for his black undershorts and stood leaning against the massage table, waiting for Bahja to bring Jem’ya to the room. Tareq chuckled as he thought of his father’s words. The King thought marrying a Qamud princess was wise. Those girls were spoiled brats. Their interests went no further than jewels, clothes and using their royal status to defy common decency. Jem’ya, on the other hand, would be a perfect wife and queen. She was a woman, not a girl. She held her head high but never looked down her nose at anyone, and she wasn’t at all materialistic. She would be a beautiful bride. Tareq was pleased by a vision of Jem’ya in rich, regal, glittering fabrics and adorned with dozens of gold wedding necklaces, bangles and rings, and an ornate gold headpiece.

  Tareq heard the lock turn in the library door. Let in by Bahja, Jem’ya walked into the room, her face and figure shrouded by a black burqa. She removed it and placed it on the hook on the wall. The white cotton dress she wore underneath took Tareq’s breath away. It was a simple long white dress that delicately outlined her curves, yet somehow the extravagant wedding garb he’d envisioned could not compare to it. Tareq bowed deeply before her. He lost his balance on the way back up, stumbling to the left a little. He chuckled at himself and smiled at her. Jem’ya’s expression remained cold.