[piosenniel]

Dawn had come. The night passed safely through once more, though she had wakened often at the sounds of movement passing between her tents and the tents of her daughters. Jamíla’s hand strayed often to the knife by her pillow. And once she rose into a crouch beside her pallet when the sounds of low voices went whispering past the thin fabric walls. But they had gone on, and only the sounds of the night breezes moving through the grasses, pushing at the sands, filled in the dark silence.

Jamíla rose early from her uneasy dreamings. Tying back the flap of fabric that served as her door, she stepped from her tent. Her muscles were sore from their tense rest, and she stretched them, head to toe, in the pale light of the early day.

The sun, just clearing the edge of the world by a mere finger’s width, was caught in the space between the splayed thumb and first finger of her right hand. She could feel the heat of the new rising day push against her palm, warming, it seemed, the sun tattoo on the back of her hand, between those two fingers. A smile inched up from the corners of her mouth at this.

‘It will be a good day,’ she thought, ‘I have caught the first light.’

Her daughters’ families were already stirring, the sounds of the little ones coming sleepily to her from their tents. Shading her eyes with her hand, she narrowed them, watching as two figures approached from the east. Husam and Nasr, her daughters’ husbands! They drew near, and she could see they had been to the small spring , some distance off, their waterskins dangling from poles across their shoulders.

‘Wife’s-mother!’ Husam’s teeth gleamed white against his dark brown face, smiling, as he greeted her. He sat down his sloshing burden and gave two of the filled skins to her. Not to be outdone, Nasr pulled off a filled skin for her and digging in the pocket of his vest fished out a gift for her.

Caught in a small, twine meshed bag was a scrub lizard. He drew it out carefully, holding it out to her, his eyes glinting with delight. ‘I caught it by the spring, hidden in the grass. It was still cold from the night and could not move quickly enough to make its escape.

She held it on the palm of her hand, admiring the brown body with its cream colored stripes, its belly the color of the white sands. It was a handspan in length and healthy, well fed. Its bright blue tail flicked once and she clasped it more securely, her thumb securing it to her palm.

‘A good sign for this day, Nasr!' The scrub lizard was the totem for her clan. Maneuvering easily between the desert and the savannah, it lived long and well. 'I thank you both!’ She laughed and inclined her head to them, then sent them quickly back to their families to start their own day. Qirfah turned back to her, motioning her to come closer. ‘We almost forgot the best news. We saw the horses of the Painted Sand tribe being led away from the spring as we approached. They are camped a distance east of the spring, I think. We could see their cooking fires in the day’s first light. Ishak ben Ishak’s wife will certainly want to see you.’ They turned to walk back to their tents, Nasr calling back to her. ‘Come eat with us this morning, Wife’s-mother! Naar wishes to show you the little whistle I carved for him.’

She waved him off with a grin, promising she would come. The lizard, still in her fist, had begun to wriggle more as the heat of her hand warmed its blood. ‘No need to fight so,’ she told it. ‘Here,’ she said walking to the back of her tent, ‘I’ll let you go to find your own meal.’ Bending down, she placed it carefully on the ground, watching it scurry south, toward the safety of the taller grasses. Her brow furrowed and she walked slowly across the smoothed dirt and sand of their encampment. The tracks of the hurrying lizard crossed over the tracks of others, many others, and most of them human.

[ August 10, 2003: Message edited by: piosenniel ]