‘The whole idea is a joke. You waste all of our time. We would perform awfully.’
‘Have I not helped you? I will train you every day.’
A new voice chuckles behind them. ‘So they owe you a debt because you trained them for a few weeks?’ I glance over, recognising the bruising girl. Arezu. Her jade eyes glare into my own. ‘You risk your reputation, leading a squadron of pazktab children. Is that even permitted by our masters?’
‘Reputation? I’ve none. No captain recruited me for the Marka. And the captain said it himself: any inhabitant of Za’skar may create a squadron. As Eajiz – young and weak though you are – you are still inhabitants of Za’skar.’
Sohrab mulls it over. ‘A battle... arealbattle. It’s—’
‘Frightening,’ Yasaman suggests.
‘Rare,’ Sohrab says, deciding, and I note, for all his impulsiveness, he might be clever. ‘We have nothing to lose, but she,’ he points to me, ‘has everything to lose, and gain.’
The youngest, Yahya, shakes and then nods his head rather unhelpfully.
‘I promise, we will not be humiliated in the Marka. Any effort is better than how we are seen now,’ I say.
‘How are we seen?’ Arezu prods.
‘Well, I am a loser in Za’skar. And you are pazktab students without a patron from the royal courts. You are losers as well.’
She studies me so scathingly gooseflesh erupts down my arms. ‘No. We are different than you.’
‘How?’
‘You are a debt collector. I’ve met your kind. My family are plant-dyers from the lands of Khor. Our landholders give cheap promises by advancing ingots, to keep us borrowing cotton. You are like that. Cheap promises tricking us into crippling debt. Everything is a bargain with you,master.’ With a perturbing look, Arezu walks away.
A cold feeling jolts into my stomach, that of an icy truth. ‘My idea will not change. I want you in my Marka squadron.’
Something resonates amongst the other three students. Sohrab’s lips twist mischievously. ‘On one condition.’
‘You are in no position to offer conditions to me.’
‘You admit you need us for your plan. Listen to our condition.’ I stiffen warily as he says, ‘Beat us at our games and we shall play yours,master.’
With a chorus of laughs, Yasaman and Sohrab leave me dumbfounded in the gardens, taking Yahya with them. The mountains splotch pink from the sunrise. My cheeks heat with it.
‘How dare they?’ I say to No-Name.
‘Patience, Khamilla.’ She speaks in the familiar tone of the brother I once knew, still stroking the head of an ababil bird. ‘They are merely children. Impatient, and young. Not all children are like you, living under the thumb of a ruler. Not all worship their pain.’
As I leave the hills for monastic training, my braids prickle and I rip off my silk tassels to find a cockroach prowling on them, two hairs clutched in its little legs.It is so small, I half muse. The urge to squash it consumes me.
No-Name looks bemused. ‘A cockroach?’
‘Those little asses,’ I say, seething, recognising what they have done. This is Sohrab’s condition. Just like the first day they spoilt my meal. These tricks and ploys with bugs... I know what I must do.
In the pavilion during mealtime, Yabghu intentionally sits between Cemil and me; we have not spoken since the night of Fayez’s humiliation. Earlier, during trifecta studies in the Great Library, I spoke through Katayoun instead of directly addressing Cemil.
I turn away while Yabghu forces a wooden conversation between Katayoun and Cemil. Surrounding us are pazktab students crossing to and fro between tables. My eyes latch on to Sohrab and Yasaman, Arezu at the front. As they pass me, I lift my cup of kahvah, dumping it in their paths, causing Sohrab to slip on the bone-stone tiles.
‘Usur-Khan?’ Yabghu berates me. When the pazktab students pass me, I do it again; my actions confuse my trifecta but I do not explain them.
In return, during the dawn breaking of fast, the pazktab students retaliate with ants squirming in my barley porridge, where I mistake the bugs for specks of cinnamon.
After trifecta training, I spend hours collecting cockroaches in teacups before releasing them in the kitchens during the breaking of eve fast.
When I find bitter anise powder in my waterskin, I leave the pavilion early and lace the children’s sandals in roughly ground chili collected from the Za’skar gardens to blister their feet. When I am at the women’s quarters of the bathing river, I discover mounds of mushed figs and dates inside the tunic of my uniform, moulding my small chest into the opposite of modesty.
