The Healer's Warrior

by Lewin, Renee

  “As long as you’d like.”

  Tareq shook his head. “That would be too lengthy for you,” he said softly.

  Her stomach fluttered. “I’ll stay until the end of the week. Okay?” She saw a small sparkle light his eyes. “If you need to talk, or you need a healing session, or if you just need some company, I’m here.”

  Tareq thanked Jem’ya with a kiss on the palm of one of her blessed hands and returned to his room. He sat on the edge of the left side of his large bed. He’d intended to go to sleep after saying his goodbyes to Qadir and to Jem’ya. Sleep was his escape from sadness and thinking. The sadness retreated a few steps because Jem’ya was going to stay with him a while. His thoughts, however, kept racing. Jem’ya’s decision to support him made him both relieved and suspicious. Her manner had changed drastically. Could she really be so selfless? Didn’t she resent him? Was she staying in order to exact revenge? He felt guilty to even think Jem’ya was capable of… he wasn’t sure what.

  As Tareq sat on his bed, eyeing the floor and the wall as he reviewed the past few hours, days, weeks, months and years of his life, he had the strange sense that he was being watched. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck straightened. He didn’t turn suddenly. He listened carefully, as his combat trainer had taught him. Every sound became magnified; especially the sound of his own breathing. He listened hard for footsteps or the rustle of clothing. There was silence, yet he felt a presence in the room. That’s when he saw the shadow moving across the wall in front of him. The shadow grew taller and the shape sharpened. A head and shoulders, then an arm rising.

  Tareq threw himself to the ground just as a dagger meant for his heart cut through the air and then buried its five-inch blade into the wall’s white plaster. Tareq reached for the handle of the sword underneath his bed. He drew the sword and jumped to his feet to face the masked assassin. The man was holding a sword of his own. He wore pants and a long sleeved shirt made of thick burlap. The pants were soiled at the knees and the elbows of the shirt were threadbare. On his face was a brass mask designed to cover his eyes and his nose. The bottom half of his face was covered by a wide strip of tan burlap tied behind his head.

  “Do you dare?” Tareq growled.

  The intruder was breathing heavily. He adjusted his grip on his sword but didn’t advance.

  Tareq rushed toward him suddenly, hoping to push the man off balance. Their swords slammed together with a sharp metallic clatter. Tareq shoved hard against the assassin’s weapon but it moved back only a few inches. Yesterday evening’s attack of painful spasms had taken its toll on Tareq’s body. He was tiring quickly. Realizing the other man’s strength and determination, Tareq jumped back. “Guards! Intruder!” Tareq yelled for assistance.

  He ducked and dodged the blade of the panicked assassin and a sword fight commenced. Tareq tried to stand his ground but he was being driven backward. The assassin was quick, strong, and desperate to kill the new king and escape alive. Tareq’s shoulder was burning with the effort of slashing and stabbing the heavy sword at his assailant. When his back touched the wall, Tareq knew that in a matter of seconds he could be fatally wounded. For an instant, Tareq accepted his own death. Everyone would be free of me, and I’d see Qadir and my mother again.

  Four royal guards rushed into the room. The assassin froze at the sight of the armed warriors. Seeing that there was no time to finish the deed, the masked man hurled his sword at the throat of the closest guard and ran for the balcony. The guard deflected the sword with the iron cuff on his thick forearm. Tareq swiftly slid his sword across the marble floor at the assassin. The sword zipped across the floor, spinning as it reached the man’s heels. The blade slid under his raised right foot and before his path. His left foot stepped on the slick blade, he lost traction, and he was sent tumbling forward. His body slammed to the ground, knocking the air out of his lungs, leaving him stunned. Tareq stalked over to him and yanked the intruder to his feet by his black ponytail. Tareq grabbed the man’s throat and pushed him all the way out to the balcony.

  “No! No!” he gurgled.

  Tareq forced him against the railing until he was leaning precariously backward. “My brother has not even been dead two days! You come into my home when I am mourning? You slither into my home like a snake and threaten my life and my family’s safety?!”

  The assassin struggled for air. “Have mercy on me, your Highness.” Tareq could see his wide bloodshot eyes through the holes of the metal mask.

  It occurred to Tareq that possibly more assassins had breached the security of his palace, putting his family in danger. Auntie and Jem’ya are my family now. Tareq nodded at one of the guards. “All the guards need to be on alert. This palace needs to be scoured for anymore snakes like this one.” He squeezed the man’s throat harder. “Jem’ya and Bahja’s rooms are priority.”

  “Yes, Commander.” Two of the guards bowed and left to relay the orders. The other two remained in Tareq’s room, vigilant.

  “Who hired you?” Tareq lessened his grip on his neck to hear the answer.

  “Alshafar.”

  “Nassim Alshafar? The silk trader?”

  The intruder nodded. “He needed a mercenary. He wanted revenge because the forbiddance of slaves has cost him a good deal of money.”

  Tareq’s skin burned with anger. That man, Alshafar, had walked in his father’s funeral. I should have known that any close friend of my father’s would be an enemy of mine. Tareq was fed up and disgusted with the greed in his kingdom. “You’re a mercenary. You’d kill anyone for coins?” he spat. “Give me one good reason why I should allow you to live!”

  Two palace guards barged into Jem’ya’s bedroom and frightened her to tears. She thought they were going to kill her. The trauma of being startled awake in her village by violent screams and strangers shouting in Samician had not gone away. Jem’ya trembled and watched as one guard grunted something at her in Samician and then both guards tore through her room looking for something. After their search came up empty they nodded at each other. One man stood in the doorway to keep surveillance of the hall and the other man stood out on the balcony, sword ready. Jem’ya began to calm down. “W-What’s going on? What happened?”

  “For safety,” the bearded guard on the balcony answered in broken Arabic.

  “I’m not safe? Are we being attacked?”

  “Attack the king. Yes.”

  Her throat tightened. “Tareq was attacked?”

  He nodded. “A man climb the room and…” He made a chopping motion with his sword.

  Jem’ya clutched at her thudding heart. “Oh my God.” She began to feel lightheaded. “Was he wounded?”

  “Not knowing. Sorry.”

  “I need to see him.” She bolted for the door.

  The guard in the doorway turned around and held up his hand. “No. Not safe, Miss.”

  “I’m his healer. I need to see him. I have to. It’s my duty. Please, I just want to see him. I could save him!”

  The guard knit his eyebrows in confusion. “Not safe. Sit, please.”

  Jem’ya turned away and prayed under her breath, for Tareq and for herself. She was in a state of panic, reliving the distress of the battle at Tikso, and experiencing the stress of the current emergency. Ever since Tareq became king, her intuition had predicted he would be in danger. Could she have warned Tareq somehow? Maybe he was badly wounded. God might perform a miracle healing through her if she could just be with Tareq in his time of need. I cannot miss the chance to save a life again. Jem’ya walked back to the doorway and began to frantically speak a random string of Samician, Arabic and Rwujan words to the guard. He became very confused as he attempted to decipher what she was saying. He was hearing words he recognized, words he didn’t recognize at all, and words he knew, and he was trying to piece it all together into something coherent to help the hysterical young lady. That’s when Jem’ya made a run for it.

  “My family, your Highness!” The assassin rasped. “I have a w
ife, six children, my sick mother, my in-laws and myself to feed.”

  As the man talked on, Tareq noticed that his voice sounded vaguely familiar.

  “I know that I am going against the will of Allah who has fated you to be our king. God will damn me. But I could not watch my family turn to skin and bone,” he sputtered.

  “Who are you?” Tareq demanded.

  The assassin went silent. Tareq began to tear off the fabric covering his mouth.

  “No! Forgive me, your Highness! Forgive me! Let me keep a shred of dignity!”

  Tareq yanked away the metal mask. Stunned, Tareq released his grip on the assassin’s throat. “You.” Standing before him was Kaliq, the man he told never to step foot in his kingdom again, the warrior that was in his squadron when they arrived at Tikso, the warrior that wounded a tribesman without his orders, the reason the battle began, the cause of the fight that left Tareq the murderer of Jem’ya’s brother and hated by her family. Tareq took a step back. His eyes stung with rage.

  Kaliq stood panting, fearful. “Your Highness,” he stammered, “I know I have been intolerably disobedient, but—”

  Tareq delivered a right hook to Kaliq’s face, and then couldn’t stop punching. Blow after blow, hit after hit, Tareq kept going, and the guards did not stop him. Tareq didn’t hear Kaliq’s shouting or feel the pain in his knuckles or in the muscles of his arms and back. Kaliq was covered in bruises and blood, semiconscious and swollen, curled into a ball on the balcony floor when Tareq finally let off of him.

  King Tareq looked at the blood on the back of his hands and felt dizzy. He left the balcony and went into the bathroom and washed the blood away. The skin on his knuckles was broken and bruising. He wiped the tears from his face, walked out of his bathroom and stared out at Kaliq moaning in pain on the ground. Tareq picked up a coin purse from his bedside table and returned to the balcony. Kaliq flinched as he neared. Tareq squat down in front of him. He pried open Kaliq’s hand and stuffed the coin purse into it. “Spend every cent on your family or I’ll kill you myself.”

  Kaliq tried to nod but he was in too much pain. “Yes, your Highness,” he breathed, then coughed up blood.

  Tareq stood. “Escort him out of here.” He followed behind the guards out to the hallway as they carried Kaliq away. His assistant was standing in the hallway. Just the person he wanted to see. “Asif. I don’t want Nassim Alshafar in my kingdom another minute. He is money hungry and bloodthirsty. He is a danger. Get rid of him.”

  “A public execution or an assassination, your Highness?”

  His stomach jumped. “No, no. Neither. Banish him. And I need to know how Kaliq was able to get past the gates and into my palace. Either the guards weren’t doing their jobs or someone in my staff was working with him.”

  “I’ll examine it, King Tareq.”

  “Thank you.” Tareq turned at the sound of heavy footsteps.

  “Tareq!” Jem’ya called out.

  A guard was chasing after her. “She ran out of her room, your Highness!” the guard explained.

  “Stop,” Tareq ordered the guard. Jem’ya ran up to him. “Jem’ya, what is the matter?” He searched her reddened eyes.

  “I thought something happened to you.” She looked him over as she caught her breath. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine.” Tareq took hold of her hands and gently squeezed them.

  “Someone attacked you?” Jem’ya gasped at the sight of his knuckles. She placed her palms on top of his hands. Tareq closed his eyes at the sensation of her healing powers pulling the soreness from his raw, broken skin. He opened his eyes.

  “An ex-warrior got into my room. He was hired as a hit man. Don’t worry, Jem’ya. I’ll keep you safe.” He rubbed his hands up and down her exposed shoulders. She still looked frightened. “Jem’ya…” He leaned forward and kissed her temple. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll double the amount of guards around the palace. Whatever you need, I will not hesitate to give it to you.”

  “I need you to be safe. Being king…It’s as if you are a walking target. I don’t see how the stress of ruling this kingdom can do anything but aggravate your condition. I won’t be here all the time to soothe you. I fear a repeat of last night. I fear,” her voice trembled, “that the next man hired to take your life will succeed.”

  Uneasy, Tareq nodded.

  Jem’ya sighed. “I’m sorry. You already know these things. I don’t know why I am criticizing the life you’ve waited so long to have and are proud to have.”

  “You say these things because you are concerned for me. I’m honored that you care, but I urge you not to be so worrisome, Mahsalom.” His fingers stroked the arch of her ear and tenderly tugged at her bare earlobe. “I don’t want you to be so…invested in me, because I will disappoint you somehow, as I have in the past.” He let his hands fall away from her. “It’s best that you go home. You shouldn’t be in this kind of environment, Jem’ya.”

  Jem’ya took his right hand and placed her other hand over his battered knuckles. Her palm tingled as she lifted the pain. She gazed up at him. “I’m not leaving you.”

  Tareq’s pleasing pink lips stretched into a soft smile.

  Jem’ya smiled too and worked her magic on his other hand.

  Tareq didn’t understand why Jem’ya wanted to preserve their friendship after everything he’d done. She had told her mother those negative things about him, which left him questioning whether they’d ever truly been friends at all. It was hard to believe that he was of such importance to her that she would volunteer to stay in the palace just to keep him company. He mistrusted her affection, yet he was utterly unable to refuse it. Her kindness was bread and water for his heart and mind.

  “Um, excuse me, your Highness.”

  Jem’ya and Tareq were snapped out of their private moment. Asif had returned. “Yes, Asif?”

  “I wanted to let you know that we’ve finally found the trunk with your mother’s belongings that was bequeathed to you in your father’s will. You’ll find it in your study. It was buried among hundreds and hundreds of items in the cellar. It’s a maze down there. A person could go missing in that place,” Asif laughed.

  The humor was lost on Tareq and Jem’ya. “Thank you, Asif,” he murmured through the shame. Tareq turned to Jem’ya. “I hope to spend more time with you later today.”

  Jem’ya nodded. “Sure.” She saw Bahja hurrying down the hall toward Tareq.

  “Tareq!” Bahja called out. “Are you okay?”

  Jem’ya smiled as she watched Bahja worry over him the way she had. Jem’ya walked back to her bedroom on the east wing. He was in control. You can’t let him do that again. Her goal was to be sweet to him in order to seduce him into liberating the Black African states under his rule, but when she heard Tareq was in danger and saw him standing weary and disheveled in the hall, she was overcome with true concern and real longing. Though she knew that Tareq was driven by lust and possessiveness rather than love, just to feel him kiss her face or to see the way he gazed into her eyes made her crumble and made her question everything. No more of that. This is not about anyone’s feelings. This is about winning. There is so much at stake. I cannot lose to him now.

  Tareq swiped his hand across the dusty lid of the trunk. The dark wood was plain, without engravings or decoration. He noticed the gashes on the front of the box where a lock used to be. Slowly, he lifted the cover. There was clothing, a few dresses and nightgowns. He studied each one, carefully refolded them, and set them aside on top of his desk. He had no memory of his mother wearing any of them. Underneath the clothes were some baby items: little shoes, a lock of hair, a rattle, and two blankets. He didn’t know what was his and what was Qadir’s. He dug further into the chest and found six brushes. A wave of sorrow washed over him. He picked up one of the silver brushes. It was so small in his hand now. When he was young, he needed to hold the handle of the brush with both hands as he and Qadir helped Mother brush her long black hair sometimes
after her bath. Cold drips of water would fall from her hair and tickle his arms. She would smile proudly and tell her little boys they were the best at brushing her hair, better than the maidservants. Would she be proud of anything I’ve done now? Would she say I am better than my father?

  Lost in thought, Tareq rummaged around the trunk some more. He found two ring boxes. One ring he recognized. It was her wedding band. It was gold, set with an emerald of a striking size. There was an inscription inside the band: You Are My Queen Forever. Love, Your King. His father’s romantic words disturbed him. The other ring was gold too, but it had a pearl at the center, surrounded by red rubies and yellow diamonds. Tareq found the ring very beautiful, so he placed it in a drawer of his desk.

  He came across a graphite sketch of a vineyard, signed Mariza Manzetti. Her given name. Tareq guessed his mother had depicted a vineyard in Tusci that she remembered fondly. He’d never seriously tried to draw anything. Maybe he would be good at it like her. He wanted to visit Tusci and find that vineyard. The contents of the trunk were teaching him so much about his mother. He was happy his father hadn’t destroyed all of her belongings. Tareq kept having the urge to call Qadir into his study to see these things. Look at this, Qadir! Remember these?

  He saw a gold chain trailing out from beneath the sketch. He pulled it up out of the trunk. At the end of the chain hung a gold pendant. He stared at the teardrop shaped gold cage with the large pearl inside for a long time. His heart was pounding. It was surreal. Mother’s necklace looks exactly like the earrings I bought for Jem’ya. He rubbed the chain between his fingers to make the pendant spin back and forth. Mother and Jem’ya…They were each precious pearls trapped in this palatial cage I call a home.