sheikh had not reported to the census-takers and sold them at auction, the proceeds going into the tribal treasury. The indignant sheikh and other Sa’idy leaders swore on the Koran that if the nazir did not now remove Ibrahim Idris, they would—by force. The khadim, the clan drum, was beaten throughout the Sa’idy camps, and men assembled for war. Upon hearing that his adversaries were coming to kill him, Ibrahim Idris ordered the Awlad Ali’s drum call to be sounded. Hundreds rallied to his side, the young men brandishing their rifles, women dancing the dances of war and vengeance.
The nazir called on the police to intervene, but they were too few, forcing him to ask the governor to send in the army. Soldiers entered the camps of the Awlad Sa’idy and the Awlad Ali and broke up the fight before it started. The governor’s deputy convened a meeting in Babanusa town to find out what had caused this dispute. Afterward the deputy privately informed Ibrahim that the government would not tolerate Muslims fighting Muslims when every man was needed for the jihad. He was to put his house in order, according to tribal customs; if he could not do it, his tenure as omda was over.
The threat provided him with the incentive to call for the murda that Hamdan had been urging.
They arrived at the appointed place, a grove of ebony trees not far from the millet gardens of the Awlad Sa’idy. The two alliances—the Awlad Ali together with the lineages loyal to it, the Sa’idy with its allies—sat in a crowded circle, facing each other. The chairman of the peace conference and the mediators sat off to one side, so as not to show favoritism. Examining the faces opposite him, Ibrahim knew this business was going to be as difficult as he’d anticipated.
“In the name of God the all-merciful, the all-loving-kind,” the chairman intoned, and opened the proceedings. Before the central dispute could be addressed, the matter of blood-debts incurred as a result of the seven revenge killings had to be resolved. The negotiations were clamorous, with men shouting opinions over one another, waving sticks or riding crops to stress a point. Despite the confusion of voices, all the cases were settled by midday. A meal was served—the meat of a bull slaughtered for the occasion, with millet and tea. Ibrahim hardly touched his food, his belly fluttering. The discussions had gone smoothly, but the blood-payments were the easy part.
The hard part began in the afternoon, after the allied lineages rode off, their business concluded, and the two major disputants reconvened, eyeing each other warily. The chairman called for the elders and notables of the Awlad Ali to speak, one at a time.
Hamdan was first. “A wound fell upon you, and the blood was on us,” he said, addressing the Awlad Sa’idy. “We should have come to you to make reconciliation, but we failed to. Then, in vengeance, a wound was on us, and you offered to come to us to settle things before there was more bloodshed, but we did not respond in the spirit of manliness, and this has led us almost to open warfare. The error was all ours. Now we come to make reparations. All we want is brotherhood from you.”
His words were greeted with silence. The speeches of the next five men were received in the same way, and then it was Ibrahim’s turn.
“I have little to add to what my brothers have said. The stain is upon me. I should have come to you right away, but I did not because of the slanders and false accusations made against me. I was too proud, and now seven sons of ours shall never be seen again. This morning we made reparations for the spilled blood. Now it is time to reconcile our differences. I was very wrong.”
He made a dramatic gesture, taking the guftan from off his head and spreading it at the feet of the Awlad Sa’idy’s leader, a man with a raven beard. “I lay this before you that you may lay upon it all my mistakes. I want nothing but brotherhood with you. Do not deny it to us. Even if you do, we will not deny you ours.”
He sat down, Hamdan glancing at him with approval, but his opponents’ faces were as stones. The only sounds were the snorts from the horses tethered nearby, the whine of flies, the rasp of leaves in the wind. When the chairman asked the