Hasim placed a chair by the bed, so soft it made no sound. Umar did not twitch. Even so light a movement would have broken his normal featherweight sleep. Sunrise could wake Umar through blackout curtains. A cat’s padding across the carpet made the big man twist and grumble. Falling temperatures, or rising, or a gust of wind, or the moon in the acacias, snapped him awake and philosophical. Hasim himself slept deeply, and shared these moments only in the half consciousness that ensued when Umar shoved him awake to talk. Fear haunted Umar at night: fear they would be attacked, the city would fall, the Refuge would fail. Many predators preyed on small gods. But he also jostled Hasim awake to debate the reality of shadows, the meaning of prayer, the logic of resurrection, the lives of gods.

Mention these matters to Umar in daylight, and he would laugh. Umar’s god, like him, preferred the strength and speed and blood of living things to scholarship. Hasim enjoyed Umar’s game of anxiety and denial. It was one of many games they played together.

In Alt Coulumb, now, Umar’s hand lay on scratchy sheets, far from the delicate cottons of their bed. Hasim took his hand, felt hard callus ridges. Umar’s palm was heavy with muscle. He squeezed. Umar did not respond.

“We’ll fight,” Hasim said, leaning close to Umar’s cheek. “Aedi cast the deciding vote. If you can believe that.”

He watched for a twitch in the broad chest, a flare of a several-times-broken nose. None came.

“I wish you were here to help us.” His voice caught, and he forced himself to laugh. “I’ll fight, Umar. Me. Life’s road takes strange turns.” No answer. “I thought you would find that funny. I won’t shame you.”

That was how they talked to each other, building trust falls into conversation. You could never shame me, that was Umar’s line. But Umar said nothing.

“I won’t shame you,” he repeated, louder, so wherever he was he could hear.

He kissed him once. His beard was dense and pillowy against Hasim’s cheek.

Hasim left the chair by the bedside. If the nurses did not move the chair back, and Umar woke while he was out, Umar would see Hasim had come to sit with him. Just in case, Hasim left a note. We are well. I love you. Superstition tugged at Hasim as he signed his name, but the hexes he feared were all an ocean away. He doubted many here could even read Talbeg.

He wrote Umar’s public name on the envelope, and added a seal so the letter would burn if opened by anyone but him. He set this on the bedside table before he left.

As the door closed, Umar shifted beneath the sheets.

*   *   *