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Royal
    Household descended on the trouble spot.
    Radetic hurried on to his employer’s quarters.
    “What happened?” Yousif demanded as soon as he had determined that Haroun’s wound
    was minor. He had cleared his tent of the usual hangers-on. “Haroun, you tell it first.”
    The boy was too frightened to stretch the truth. “I . . . I used my blow tube. To hit his horse.
    I didn’t know he would get hurt.”
    “Megelin?”
    “That’s the gist of it. A practical joke, in poor taste. I’d blame the examples set by his elders.
    I did, however, hear mention of Sabbah i Hassan beforehand.”
    “How so?”
    “In the context, I believe, of a similar stunt. Your children, you know, are even more
    primitive and literal-minded than the rest of you.”
    “Haroun? Is that true?”
    “Huh?”
    “Did you do the same thing to Sabbah i Hassan?”
    Radetic smiled thinly as he watched the boy struggle with the lie trying to break out of the
    prison of his mouth. “Yes, Father.”
    Fuad returned to the tent. He seemed to have calmed down.
    “Teacher?”
    “Wahlig?”
    “What the hell were they doing running the streets? They were supposed to be in class.”
    “Be serious, Yousif,” Fuad interjected. “Don’t tell me you’re already too old to remember
    being young.” The Wahlig was forty-one. “It’s Disharhun. The woman wore no veil. You think the man is a miracle worker?”
    Radetic was amazed. Fuad had made it plain that he thought any teacher who did not teach
    the use of weapons was superfluous. A warrior chieftain needed no other education. Scribes and accountants could be enslaved.
    Moreover, he disliked Radetic personally.
    What had put him into so good a mood? It worried Radetic.
    “Haroun.”
    The boy approached his father reluctantly, took his spanking without crying. And without
    contrition.
    Yousif was angry. He never punished his children before outsiders. And yet . . . Radetic
    suspected that his employer was not entirely displeased.
    “Now go find your brothers. Tell them to get back here and stay out of trouble.”
    The boy ran out. Yousif looked at Fuad. “Bold little brat, isn’t he?”
    “His father’s son, I think. You were the same.”
    Haroun was Yousif’s favorite, though the Wahlig hid it well. Radetic suspected that he had
    been hired specifically for the benefit of the one boy. The others had been tossed into his classes in a vain hope that a patina of wisdom might stick.
    Haroun would have preferred a scholarly life. When away from older brothers he showed
    the temperament. In fact, he had told Radetic that he wanted to be like him when he grew up.
    Megelin had been pleased and embarrassed.
    For a six-year-old Haroun showed remarkable determination to pursue the mission decreed
    for him by an accident of birth. He acted twice his age. He was possessed of a stern, stolid
    fatalism seldom seen in anyone under thirty.
    Megelin Radetic hurt a lot for the fated child.
    Fuad bubbled over. “Yousif, this is the break we’ve been waiting for. This time he’s given us a good, rock-hard excuse.”
    Radetic was startled when he suddenly realized that Fuad was talking about El Murid. It
    was a revelation. He had not suspected that powerful men were actually afraid of the Disciple.
    Afraid of a fifteen-year-old who, like themselves, had come to Al Rhemish for the rites of
    Disharhun, and to see his infant daughter christened before the Most Holy Mrazkin Shrines.
    They had been lying to him. And to themselves, probably. Just plain old-fashioned whistling
    in the dark.
    All this fuss over religious nonsense.
    “Wahlig, this is ridiculous. Barbarous,” Radetic grumbled. “Even pathetic. The boy is a
    madman. He crucifies himself every time he preaches. You don’t have to trump up charges. Let
    him have his High Holy Week. Let him talk. They’ll laugh him out of Al Rhemish.”
    “Let me boot this fish-faced pimp,” Fuad growled.
    Yousif raised a silencing hand. “Calm down. He has a right