Free The Diviner by Melanie Rawn

brown with a reddish sheen by lamplight, and his filthy robe might once have been red.
    Kabir mumbled irritably to himself, then sent Fadhil out of the tent. The boy returned a little while later with two clay jugs. One of them he placed on the low table near the sick man’s bedding, and the other he gave to Azzad.
    â€œQawah?” Azzad asked, trying not to sound dismayed.
    â€œWine, to strengthen the blood.”
    As Kabir and Fadhil bent over the new arrival, Azzad leaned back into his pillows and drank. It was surprisingly good, sharp and dry just as he liked it, with a hint of berries.
    In the middle of his dreaming he remembered that he didn’t remember falling asleep. He couldn’t move, not even in his dream. But he could hear, and the voices were feminine and familiar. Something in the wine, he thought, and knew he wasn’t dreaming at all.
    â€œAnd so, Leyliah, what is your judgment of this man’s sickness?”
    â€œIt is of the circulation of the blood,” the younger woman replied with confidence.
    â€œExactly,” said Challa Meryem. “Very good. Were we to look inside, we would find his blood paths thickened and in some places nearly shut. Now, what is the appropriate treatment for his condition?”
    Azzad listened, immobile and mute with the drugged wine. Women as healers. And the Shagara didn’t want him to know. Fadhil had thus far protected him. But if the others thought he knew, they would never let him leave. They would kill him.
    There was something basically illogical about that: Why heal a man only to kill him if he discovered the tribe’s secret? Then he thought about the women and how valuable they were. A woman with skill beyond a male physician’s would be well worth abducting. Shocking, this thought, but if the Shagara did not allow their women to marry outside the tribe—and Meryem had said that people came to the Shagara for healing. Wherever they made camp, people would come from great distances. Those thorn fences were not portable, so there must be others well-established in other places. Azzad wondered how many and where.
    â€œI approve the treatment, Leyliah,” said Challa Meryem. “Write it down for Kabir and Fadhil and then go to bed.”
    One set of soft footsteps left the tent. Then he heard Meryem’s voice directly over his head—so startling that if he’d been able to move, he would have leaped right out of his skin.
    â€œAs well you will be leaving us soon, Azzad al-Ma’aliq,” she murmured. “I do not trust you, nor the looks Leyliah gives you—though one cannot blame her for them.”
    He wondered once more whether Leyliah was beautiful. If Grandfather would find her worth the trouble . . . .
    Azzad woke suddenly some hours later, wondering what had disturbed him. The eastern wall of the tent was pale, hinting of dawn. Lying on his side, keeping his body still and his breathing soft and regular, he listened carefully.
    And heard the barest whisper of a footstep on the floor.
    Kabir or Fadhil would simply have walked across the carpets. Meryem or Leyliah would be quieter, lighter, but not stealthy. Not like this.
    Another step. Azzad risked slitting one eyelid open, peering through the spider-legs of his lashes. The “sick” man was moving with exquisite slowness toward him. And even in the feeble light the sheen of steel was unmistakable.
    Thanks be to Acuyib, the wine had worn off. He tensed and relaxed all his muscles in turn. His hearing was acute, his head clear. He tried to guess: heart or throat? Quiet demanded the latter. It was the more difficult attack—not a straight knife-thrust between the ribs but a grab of the hair and a slice from ear to ear, to make sure the windpipe was severed and no sound could be made, or a brutal thrust right into the throat. A chest was a much larger target. He shut his eyelid, risked giving a sigh and a snort as a sleeping man