KeYnNamM 

The Man-with-No-Name,

the King of No-One’s-Land

By: Ruwen Rouhs
(© 2022 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

RRouhs@tickiestories.us

Chapter 19
Tarit’s Tamimt

Before daybreak the soft clopping of horses roused Ikken from a deep sleep. He woke up, sat in bed with his eyes closed for a few moments and listened. He had to find his way around the dim tent. To his right, Yufayyur was breathing quietly and deeply. He recognized him by his smell. But there was someone else in the bed, there at his feet. When he carefully felt for the intruder with his toes, he turned around, mumbled unintelligibly, and then continued to breathe quietly. Now he knew  it was his brother Aylal, the little bird. Ikken remembered that after the dance with Yufayyur, he had retired to bed and fallen asleep as if dead. But where had his brother suddenly come from?

He had no time to think about it, for the tent flap flew back and a tall figure pushed its way into the narrow tent and then another. It only took him a moment to recognize KeYnNamM and Tarit. Naked as he was, he jumped out of bed and excitedly embraced his new father and kissed him on both cheeks, "KeYnNamM, KeYnNamM-baba!" he cried joyfully, turning around, "Aylal, KeYnNamM's here! KeYnNamM-baba, Baba is back safe and sound!"

The shout of joy woke both sleepers. Aylal immediately tried to squeeze between Ikken and KeYnNamM, tugging at them until all three fell onto the bed. In the meantime, Tarit had grabbed Yufayyur by the shoulders, "Let me look at you son! You look happy! Happier than I have ever seen you! You are beaming! I know who's to blame!" pointing at Ikken. Instead of answering, Yufayyur tugged at Tarit until they too ended up on the bed together.

When finally, each of the five had found a place on the narrow bed, KeYnNamM between Ikken and Aylal and Tarit next to Yufayyur, they told each other what had happened in the last days. After a short time, first Aylal, then Ikken and finally the others fell asleep. They woke up when Yufayyur's mother, Tamimt, Lunja and Dihya entered the sunlit tent. Behind them, the other women of the clan appeared out of nowhere. Before they could even get a glimpse of the tent, children began to crowd in, first the boys, the boldest of whom climbed onto the bed to greet Tarit, and then the girls. The adolescent girls stood stock-still at first, but began to whisper when they noticed Ikken and Yufayyur were hiding under the covers because they were in the buff. As one cheeky girl blurted out "They're naked!" the clan mother shooed all the visitors out. "We'll meet under the trees, you must tell us all the news there!"

Dihya and Lunja didn't like that at all, they had been without Tarit for almost a month now. "First you must see your sons!" the two protested in unison, "They have grown in the time you've been away! Come on, let's go to Dihya's tent, both sons are sleeping there!" But their mother only frowned "First Tarit and KeYnNamM are accountable to the tribe and then you can have Tarit all to yourselves."

Tarit, noticing how Tamimt, his favorite wife, looked up at him in disappointment, took her in his arms, kissed her on the forehead, "Wait until tonight, then I will fulfill my promise. KeYnNamM and I will spend the whole night with you! Now I have a request. Keep my friend company while I take care of my little sons."

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When Tarit left Lunja and Dihya in the evening, he was dead tired, more tired than after a week in the saddle and even more tired than after the campaign against Areksim. When he arrived outside Yufayyur's tent, he almost tripped over KeYnNamM, who was there telling Aylal and his friends about the campaign.

"KeYnNamM, KeYnNamM!" he squatted down next to his friend, "Believe me, with the first woman it's exciting, with the second woman it's even more fun. However with both of them at the same time? I am totally wear you out! I'm totally done KeYnNamM, hold me tight or I'll drop down on the spot!"

"Hey, hey, hey Tarit! What did YOU tell me at camp every morning? All night I've been dreaming about my desert flowers! Once I get back, I'll stay in tent with my beauties for a whole week! And now?" KeYnNamM smirked and threatened Tarit with his finger. Tarit smirked back, "Don't laugh too soon, old man! Wait, wait until tomorrow morning!" As KeYnNamM looked at his friend in amazement, "You know my promise, Man-Without-Name. Tamimt wants twins, one with blue eyes and black frizzy hair and one with black eyes and blond hair, and who could get them for her? Just the two of us together."

Aylal, who had not left KeYnNamM's heels since dawn, wanted to show what he had learned from his Imuhagh friends and interfered cheekily, "Tarit, if you make Tamimt twins, then both will have frizzy hair and be black, just like the sons of Dihya and Lunja. They'll be black like you and definitely not as blond as KeYnNamM-baba! Every child knows that!" Tarit tugged on his ear, "You have learned a lot here in the dessert, Aylal, much more than in the city, haven’t you? But wait, this time next year you might have two baby brothers! One black and one white! Bet!"

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The drumming woke Tarit up. Damn, he thought, I must have fallen asleep! It took him only a moment to realize what the drumming meant. A great festival! The seven-day festival in his honor. The feast in KeYnNamM's honor, in honor of their sons Yufayyur and Ikken. The victory celebration! It would last six more evenings, because he and KeYnNamM, had missed the first evening of celebration, ecause only Yufayyur and Ikken had been with the clan. They deserved the clebration as much as he and the Amestan. "KeYnNamM, KeYnNamM! Where are you?" he called in vain, for the Amestan was already with the men at the feast site. Aylal as well as the scent of goats roasting over the open fire had drawn him there.

Today’s celebration was different from the night before. As the day before the women, young girls and children stood in a semicircle in front of the dark trees. Even the musicians were the same,but today not only the clan mother performed the ballads. Today Tarit's wives Dihya, Lunja and Tamimt also recited hymns of praise to the heroes.

When the dance began, the first to step through the gap in the semicircle were KeYnNamM and Tarit, who began the dance of the horses. While they whirled up the dust with their feet like horses when they galloped through the desert sand, the clan mother began with the praises "Black Rider! Black Rider! Desert prince who is victorious...." and one after another Dihya, Lunja and Tamimt joined in the titulaws, interrupted only by the shrill trills of the other women at the end of each stanza. The song of praise to Tarit passed without delay to the tamule to KeYnNamM, only that here Tamimt took the honor of first cantor, "King of the Draa, protector of the No-One's-Land, Invisible One, whom no one knows, who disappears like the Draa in the sandy desert and reappears where no one suspects him! Protector of No-One's-Lands......" As the verses died away, the young men pushed through the half-circle of women, Yufayyur and Ikken in the lead, and the round dance around the heroes of the evening. At the beginning of the second dance, Tarit asked Yufayyur and Ikken into the circle and the dust kicked up as they danced brought tears to the eyes of more than just the old women.

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Where were the colorful carpet with flowers that stopped the wind at the tent entrance? Aylal rubbed his eyes. Then he listened to the breaths beside him. It was not Tamimt! He rolled from his left to his right side. Of course, it was not Tamimt as in the weeks before, it was Ikken and the arms wrapped around his brother belonged to Yufayyur. That's why the tent was so bare! In Yufayyur's tent were only the bare necessities, a chest with robes, his weapons and his saddle. He sat up. Not even anything to eat, no honey, no dates, no figs only a jug of water. Yufayyur relied entirely on his mother or he parasitized from one his sisters, preferably Dihya, the oldest, because she cooked the best. Aylal thought about turning over again and continuing to sleep, but then he felt that he urgently needed to go to the forest, because his bladder was pressing. Besides! Who had kept Tamimt company tonight? He had to sneak up to her tent and spy!

After the dance, KeYnNamM had carried Aylal, who had fallen asleep at the gathering place, in his arms to Yufayyur's tent and put him in the still empty bed. Ikken, who came from the dance place much later sweaty and with a full belly, had pushed his little brother to the far edge of the bed, lay down and was almost asleep when Yufayyur came.

"Tamimt must have other company tonight," he remarked when he saw Aylal. Then he kissed Ikken on the mouth. "Tonight, Tarit and Tamimt will celebrate their real wedding finally. My little sister has revealed to me that Tarit does not want to make her a wife until KeYnNamM is free." then he hesitated, "Tamimt demanded of Tarit that his friend be present at this solemn moment. She knows that they loved each other even before he first saw her!"

Ikken tried to look deeply into his friend's eyes, which was almost impossible in the dark "Yufayyur, tell me, are Tarit and KeYnNamM still in love with each other as they were when they first saw each other?" then Ikken hesitated, "Do you think we will still be in love with each other even if you live here with the clan and I live on the Draa?" "Little King Gaya, I know it! I believe in it! But who knows now what will happen in future."

In the evening of that day the third section of seven-day victory celebration took place. On the first evening only, the inhabitants of the small clan had celebrated the victors. On the second evening the clans from the next villages joined in the victory celebration and from the third evening on visitors from near and far streamed in. With each new visitor, the rhythmic clapping increased, the intensity of the praises and the shrill trills of the women increased. Now, not only the victors of the present campaign were now praised, but the victors of past battles all the way back to King Gay. At the end of each of the dances the Imuhagh pleaded with Kel Essuf to confuse the senses of the enemies in future campaigns.

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The messenger of Amenokal came at daybreak. At the three tents of Tarit, he jumped off his horse, rushed through the entrance of the first, "Tarit, lord and dearest son of the desert king, strange things are happening in the border province of the empire. Horsemen are approaching Tinghir in the border province. There is danger ahead! The Amenokal must know what the horsemen are up to. Are they to avenge the defeat of Areksim's expeditionary corps? Are they to put the high-handed governor in his place?" he gasped, "Wake up Tarit, your men are waiting for you tomorrow at the Qsar of the Jinn."

But Tarit was not in Dihya's tent. She woke up, insulted the messenger, "Impudent one! What gives you the right to enter the tent of an honorable woman! Not even the Amenokal is allowed to enter here without invitation." Then she reflected, "Look for him in the decorated tent. He and his friend KeYnNamM have spent every night there! Wake him up, if you dare!"

The messenger dared and before noon Tarit and KeYnNamM set out. Ikken and Aylal had to go with them. Aylal whined "Now I'll lose my new friends and who will guard Tamimt when I'm gone?" Ikken was not so sad, because Yufayyur wanted to ride along, "To the border my Ikken!" he said, "And if need be, to Tinghir. I will help you to avenge your father".

The small cavalcade did not take the detour via the kasbah of the desert king to the Qsar of the Jinn, but took the direct route. Nevertheless, the ride lasted a day and a half. When they finally arrived at the Fountain of the Jinn near the three residential castles, everyone fell exhausted from the saddle and slept until dawn the next day. The Amenokal had kept his word. Tarit's old troop had arrived in full, supplemented by the two former mercenaries Areksim from Tinghir, who had sworn allegiance to the Amenokal.

Riding along the dry valley to the source of the Meryem, Tarit was annoyed by the garbage that the governor's mercenary troop had left everywhere, empty water bags, broken crockery, useless weapons. In their haste, the mercenaries had not even bothered to cover their excretion with sand. Tarit shook his head in disgust and ordered his men to pick up the remains of the campaign and burn them.

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Ikken and Yufayyur knew that the night at the source of the Meryem would be the last they could spend together under a blanket for a long time. They climbed the steep path to high ground above the spring, spread their blanket on the cliffs, and stared sadly into the night sky.

"Do you think the Kel Essuf and its Jinns will also protect me when I am in the valley of the Draa? Do you think they will protect me when I leave for Tinghir to avenge my father?" Ikken clung to Yufayyur, "They'll protect you for sure, because you'll stay in the desert and guard the border!"

I am not a marabout, Yufayyur thought to himself, not a wise man who can predict the future. But he didn't say it, instead he reached for a leather pouch he wore around his neck, "Here!" he put the leather cord with the pouch around Ikken's neck, "Here, my mother handed me this amulet for you. It protected her brother and now, it will protect you, the way my amulet protected both of us on the campaign." In the dim moonlight, Yufayyur searched Ikken's eyes, "She told me to tell you that she loves you as much as I love you." As Ikken blinked in amazement, "She is a wise woman, she knows everything, she knows what binds us."

As the dawn woke them, Ikken snuggled even closer to Yufayyur than the nights before. "I feel you stronger than ever before. You were deeper and longer with me than ever before. I wished the night would never end." Yufayyur stuck his nose deep into Ikken's mop of hair, inhaling his scent, "This night was more beautiful than any before. I can still feel you!" then he chuckled softly, "Have I been a good teacher?" as Ikken turned his head and nodded to him, "You must keep in practice, my Ikken, when we are apart. I am a strict teacher and will check your progress as soon as we meet again."

As the horses began to neigh restlessly below at the spring, the friends ran exuberantly down the steep trail, jumped on the already saddled horses, and followed the others who had taken the trail to the borderlands of the desert kingdom. A few miles below the source of the Meryem, KeYnNamM with Ikken and Aylal separated from Tarit, Yufayyur and the border guards. While KeYnNamM with his sons turned northwest and followed the trail through the mountains, the border guards rode toward the mouth of the wadi into the Draa Valley.

As they departed, Yufayyur straightened in the stirrups and warned Ikken, "You must never open Amulet, little King Gaya! You must never take off the amulet. It will then lose its power and must be blessed anew." 

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To be continued...

Posted 09/09/2022