“Maram,” he said, grinning, one hand still on one of his cousin’s arms, “may I introduce the scions of the Mas’udi and Nasiri tribes. Khulood has been head of the Nasiri tribe for a year now. ‘Imad and I’timad are twins and ascended two months ago.”

Khulood was a slender woman a few years older than me, of a height with me, with dark hair threaded with gold. When she moved her head just so and the light struck it, I could see undertones of red. Her eyes were wide and dark, but there was a shrewdness to her expression that belied my instinct to mark her as innocent as the eyes would suggest. The twins, ‘Imad and I’timad, were almost mirror images of each other. Brown skin darkened by many hours spent in the sun and curling brown hair that stopped just beneath ‘Imad’s ears, and tumbled, untamed, down I’timad’s back.

I frowned as my eyes fixed on the youngest of them, a boy. He had the same coloring as Khulood, though his hair was heavy and thick. “I know you,” I said. “We’ve met.” He’d been among the makhzen attendants in the Ziyaana.

He grinned and bowed. “Tariq bin Nasir, Your Highness. I yet reside in the Ziyaana.”

“Though we hope,” Khulood said softly, “that the king will be kind and allow him to return to us.”

That, I thought, was unlikely. Mathis kept the makhzen in check by keeping their children. And no matter the length of the occupation, he trusted none of them regardless of their apparent docility.

“How are you finding M’Gaadir?” I asked.

I’timad grinned. “It is much as we remember it.” Her brother elbowed her in the side, and she sobered. “It is a beautiful estate, Your Highness.”

I allowed a little of my amusement to seep into my voice. “Thank you, I’timad. It was designed with care.”

After we were finished with introductions, everyone settled into a spot in the orchard. Khulood and her brother Tariq found a friend who had arrived earlier, while the Mas’udi twins joined us in the bower to show Idris holovids of the horses they’d brought.

As if summoned by talk of horses, ‘Adil, Idris’s much younger cousin, came barreling through the courtyard with a shout. He was covered in hay, and his fine clothes were dirty. I did not need the disapproving eye of his minder to know he’d been in the stables, and without permission. Still, I thought with a smile, it seemed not even her aggravation could overshadow his glee. He was nine or ten, caught in that awkward stage of growth where he was both gangly and small. His family had arrived even before Idris and me, part of the Salihi contingent straight from Al Hoceima.