Rabiah turned to him, a confused look on her beautiful face. “You don’t believe that.”
Al-Ashmar smiled. “I may not understand much, Rabiah of No Mother, but I know devotion when I see it.”
Rabiah stared, saying nothing, but her eyes softened ever so slowly.
“I will need to come for a week, to ensure Bela’s restoration is complete. Perhaps we can come here and talk. Perhaps play a hand of river.”
“I don’t play games, Physic.”
“Then perhaps just the talk.”
Rabiah held his gaze, and then nodded.
The next week passed by quickly. Al-Ashmar’s oldest son, Fakhir, was forced to take the summons Al-Ashmar would have normally taken himself; Tayyeb, his oldest girl, did what she could for those who brought their cats to his home; and though they hated it, it was up to Hilal and Yusuf to watch over the young ones, Shafiq and Badra and Mia.
The family conversed each night over dinner. Al-Ashmar helped them learn from things they did wrong, but in truth his pride swelled over their performances in jobs he thought them incapable of only days ago.
Most of his time, however, was spent creating the tonic for Bela and the empress, administering it, and teaching the technique to Djazir. Bela continued her uncanny acceptance of the tonic, as Djazir continued his complaints, but the cure progressed smoothly.
Rabiah held true to her word. She accompanied him to the roof, sometimes for nearly an hour, and spoke to him. She was reserved at first, unwilling to speak, and so it was often Al-Ashmar who told stories of the south, of his travels, of his early days in the capital. It was uncomfortable to speak of Nara, but to speak of his children, he had no choice but to speak of his wife.
“You loved her?” Rabiah asked one day.
“My wife? Of course.”
“You couldn’t have children of your own?”
Al-Ashmar smiled and jutted his chin toward the city. “She knew what it was like, out there. Why have our own when there are so many in need?”
Rabiah regarded him for a long time then, and finally said, “You wanted one of your own, didn’t you?”
Al-Ashmar paused, embarrassed. “Am I so shallow?”
“No, but such a thing is hard to hide when you speak of subjects so close to the heart.”
He shrugged, though the gesture felt like a clear betrayal of Nara. “I did want my own, once, but I regret nothing. How would I have found my Mia if I hadn’t? My Fakhir and Tayyeb?”
The silence grew uncomfortable, and Al-Ashmar was sure he’d made a mistake by discussing his children. But how could he not? They were his loves. His life.
“You are the noble one,” Rabiah said, and left him standing near the railing.
Al-Ashmar, hugging Mia against his hip, stood before the palace, unsure of himself with the palace so near.
The eighth day had come—the last day Al-Ashmar would be allowed into the palace. Djazir had mastered the tonic well enough, and he’d grown increasingly insistent that no one, least of all the empress, needed to take such a distasteful brew any longer.
Al-Ashmar could hardly argue. The snakelike trails in Bela’s eyes were gone, and her feces had returned to a proper level of density.
“Let’s go,” Mia said.
“All right, pet, we’ll go.”
They entered the palace. The guards were a bit disturbed by the unexpected addition of Mia, but Al-Ashmar explained to them calmly that Rabiah had permitted it. He made it to the empress’s garden, where he relieved his aching arms of Mia’s weight.
Djazir marched forward. “What is this?”
“Eminence, my sincere apologies. With my absence, my business is in a shambles. My other children are old enough to run my errands, but I had no one to watch Mia. She will sit quietly, here, and bother no one.”
“She had best not, Physic.” Djazir frowned and stared at Mia. “Don’t touch a thing, child. Do you hear me?”
Mia hugged Al-Ashmar’s waist and nodded.
Al-Ashmar calmed Mia down enough that he could leave her on a bench near the rear of the garden, mostly out of sight of the empress’s three peaked doorways. He made his way inside the room, where the empress sat waiting on her throne. The four guards stood at the corners of the room, two more behind the throne, but Rabiah was not to be found. Where was she?
The empress stared out through the gauzy curtains hanging over the doorways. She studied the garden, perhaps watching Mia play. Then her eyes took in Al-Ashmar.
And a hint of a smile came to her lips.
Al-Ashmar couldn’t help but return the smile, but he hid it as quickly as it had come.
Bela strutted around from the back of the throne and moved to the bowl of cream placed there by Djazir.
“Come, Physic.”
Al-Ashmar nodded. From inside his vest he retrieved one of the eight phials he’d brought for their final day, but Djazir held up his hand to forestall him.
“I’ve administered my own tonic,” Djazir said. “All that’s left is for you to examine Bela.”
Al-Ashmar began to worry. He needed to speak to Rabiah, had to try one last time for he would never have the chance again, but with the tonic already administered, there was only so far he could extend the examination before Djazir caught on. He did what he could: he kneeled and studied Bela’s golden eyes closely even though they were obviously clear of the worm; he checked her muscle tone and reflexes; he examined her teeth.
“Enough,” Djazir said, stepping to Al-Ashmar’s side. “We both know Bela is fine. The empress thanks you for your time.”
Just then the empress began to cough, a wracking, hoarse affair, and it nearly shook her from the throne. The guards moved to hold her, but Djazir waved them away as he rushed to her side. Al-Ashmar waited, hoping that Rabiah would step from the rear of the room.
“That will be all, ak Kulhadn.”
Al-Ashmar bowed and retreated to the sounds of the empress’s horrible coughing. How painful it sounded. Painful, but also a touch forced to Al-Ashmar’s ear.
He reached the garden, but could not find Mia.
“Mia,” he called softly, hoping Djazir wouldn’t hear.
She wasn’t in the garden, so he moved up the stairs leading to the rooftop patio. He allowed himself to smile. Rabiah was crouched next to Mia, and her gaze followed Mia’s outstretched finger through the balustrades of the marble railing to the city beyond.
“Is that so?” Rabiah asked.
Mia nodded. “And then peppa brought it to our house. It was big as me—at least, big as I was then, which is still pretty big.”
Mia noticed Al-Ashmar approach. “I told you she was pretty,” Mia said.
Al-Ashmar smiled as his face flushed. He wished he could say the same thing to Rabiah, but Nara’s memory stayed his tongue.
“You could help others,” Al-Ashmar said as he tussled Mia’s dark hair, “and the empress will be waiting for you on the other side.”
“She’ll need me.”
“She’ll have your predecessor, Rabiah. She’ll have the others.” He motioned down toward the empress’s coughing, which was starting to subside. “She’ll be whole once she reaches the far shore.”
Her eyes were pleading, as if they wanted a reason to come with him. “This is blasphemy.”
“Not where we’re from,” Mia said, as if she, too, were from the south.
Rabiah looked down at Mia, and a sad smile came to her lips. “That’s just it, child. It is, even where your peppa’s from.” When she again met Al-Ashmar’s eyes, her expression was resolute. “Please, go.”
Al-Ashmar hesitated. Words always seemed to flee in the important moments of his life, and this time he knew the reason why. No matter how foolish he considered Rabiah’s choice to be, he would never force his beliefs on another. She would have to embrace the empress’s wish before she could be saved.
“You would be loved,” he said to Rabiah, and then he picked up Mia and left the palace.
Whe
n they were back in the streets, Mia said, “Is she coming to live with us?”
“No, pet, she’s not.”
Al-Ashmar woke upon hearing the great bell on top of the Hall of Ancients ring. A gentle rain pattered against the roof. The bell rang again and again. Al-Ashmar knew, well before it had reached the fourteenth peal, that the empress had died.
When it was over, he sat there in the silence, feeling as if one of his own family had been lost. No, not one. Two. The empress, even in her state, had smiled upon him in more ways than one—how could he not consider her family? And Rabiah. She’d been so close to walking away from her pointless fate.
A soft knock came at the door.
He opened it in a rush and found Rabiah standing outside, drenched.
“I don’t want to die,” she said.
Al-Ashmar stepped aside and ushered her into his house. He motioned her to his workroom, where the hearth still had enough embers to stoke some warmth from them. He got a blanket for Rabiah and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Fakhir walked into the room, hair disheveled with a blanket around his shoulders. “Everything all right, Peppa?”
“Fine, Fakhir. Go to bed.”
Fakhir retired, leaving Al-Ashmar alone with this beauty and the sounds of the pattering rain. He prepared some lime tea for her, but by the time he handed it to her, she looked confused, as if coming to him might have been a big mistake.
“There is no shame in living a longer life, Rabiah. There’s so much good you can do. For these children.” He paused. “For me.”
She looked at him then. Her eyes, no longer rimmed with kohl, looked just as beautiful in the ruddy light of the hearth. “For you?”
A harsh knock came at the front door.
Al-Ashmar’s heart beat faster in his chest. “Were you followed?”
Rabiah glanced around, as if specters would take form from the shadows around them. “I-I took precautions.”
Djazir’s voice bellowed from the other side of the door. “Open, ak Kulhadn, or we’ll break the door in.”
Al-Ashmar scrambled for a proper hiding place, but there would be none. He couldn’t even spirit her out the rear door. There was no telling what Djazir would do if they were caught running.
“It will be all right,” Al-Ashmar said as he stood and moved to the door. “Stay by my side.”
Four of his children stood in the doorway of their bedroom. “Fakhir, get them to bed, now. Close your door.”
Before he could reach the front door, it crashed open. Al-Ashmar shivered. Three guards stormed into the room. Two more stood outside with Djazir. After the guards had positioned themselves about the room, Djazir strode in as if it were his own home. He looked Al-Ashmar up and down, then Rabiah, who stood nearby.
“Rabiah, come.”
She stayed planted, gaze darting between Al-Ashmar and Djazir.
“Djazir, please. We can discuss this.”
Djazir motioned to the nearest guard. Al-Ashmar barely registered the fist from the corner of his eye, and then everything was pain and disorientation. He fell, his shoulder and neck striking the low eating table in the center of the room. A piercing ache stormed up his neck to the base of his skull.
Before he could make sense of what had happened, the guard closest to Rabiah grabbed the back of her neck and manhandled her toward the exit.
“Stop!”
“Dear physic, you have made this more than necessary.” He knelt next to Al-Ashmar, daring him to rise. “Now, I will assume, for the sake of your children, that Rabiah has come to you for a bit of advice, that she has come to spill her fears of the time to come. It is natural, after all; you of all people should know this. I’ll also assume that you kindly told her that everything will be fine, that her sacred voyage will be painless, and that she should return to the palace, as any good citizen would.”
Al-Ashmar opened his mouth to speak, but Djazir talked over him.
“But if I find differently, or if I see you again before I guide the empress to the opposite shore, I’ll have your head.” Djazir stood. “Do we understand one another?”
The door to the children’s room was cracked open. Mia’s whimpering filtered into the room. He had no choice. He had to protect them, and though it burned his gut to do so, he nodded to Djazir.
Djazir smiled, though his eyes still pierced. “I see we have an understanding. It would be a pity for seven orphans to become orphaned all over again.”
And with that he left. The door stood open, and Al-Ashmar could only watch as Rabiah was forced to accompany them up the street, toward the palace.
The sun had not yet risen. It was hours since Rabiah had been taken away but still Al-Ashmar could think of nothing to do. He was powerless to stop Djazir.
“Peppa?” It was Mia, standing in the doorway to his workroom.
“Go to bed,” Al-Ashmar said.
“Nobody can sleep, and it’s almost morning.”
Several of the other children were preparing breakfast in the main room behind Mia.
“Then eat.”
Mia sat on the stool nearby and picked up the empress’s book. “Is she coming back?”
Al-Ashmar wanted to cry. “No, Mia. She’s not.”
Just then a cat entered through the rear door of the workroom and rubbed against Mia’s leg. “Bela!” Mia said.
Indeed, the cat looked just like the empress’s. Al-Ashmar picked up the animal and examined her eyes, removing any doubt. This was certainly Bela, but how was it possible? The cat should have died with the empress.
Bela bit the meat of Al-Ashmar’s thumb, and he dropped her in surprise. Bela walked from the room as if she’d never intended to be here in the first place.
Al-Ashmar followed her out the rear door. Bela had already slunk beneath the gate of their small yard and out to the alley behind. Al-Ashmar followed and called back to Mia, who was trying to trail him. “Go back, Mia. I’ll return when I can.”
Al-Ashmar trailed Bela through the pale light of pre-dawn. She wound her way through the streets, and it gradually became clear she was leading him toward the palace. But she avoided the main western road. She traveled instead to the rear of the tall hill which housed it. She climbed the rocks, often leaving her human companion behind, but she would stop when Al-Ashmar fell too far back and then continue before he could catch up to her.
The eastern face of the hill held a shallow ravine with plants dotting a trail—most likely from the waste it carried from the palace to the river. Bela found a crook in the hillside, whereupon she stopped. When Al-Ashmar finally caught up, she circled his legs and meowed.
Al-Ashmar parted the wall of vines clinging to the nearby boulder. A low, dark tunnel entrance stood there. Al-Ashmar rushed through, realizing that Bela—or more likely the soul of the empress—was leading him up to the palace. In utter darkness, he climbed the spiral stairs as quickly as his burning lungs would allow. Occasionally the stairwell would end, forcing him to take a short passage to find another that led him upward once more, but by and large it was strictly a grueling uphill climb.
His legs threatened to give out, forcing him to stop, but dawn would arrive soon, and Al-Ashmar feared that would be when the empress’s retinue would be killed.
Finally, dim light came from above, and the peal of a bell filtered down to him. Dawn had arrived. Bela meowed somewhere ahead. He felt sure he’d climbed treble the height of the palace, but still he pushed harder. The light intensified, and he came to a wall with a grate embedded into it. Though the brightness hurt his eyes, he surveyed what he realized was the empress’s garden.
Visible through the three peaked doorways, Djazir paced along the empress’s throne room. Six of the empress’s personal guard stood nearby, each wearing ornate leather armor with a sword and dagger hanging from a silver belt. Djazir wore a white silk robe embroidered with crimson thread, and a ceremonial dagger hung from a golden belt at his waist. The empress was wrapped in folds of white cloth, her face
still exposed. Five bolts of white cloth waited on the marble floor to her left.
To her right, on another bolt of cloth, was Rabiah, unconscious or dead.
Please, Rabiah, be alive.
Djazir continued to pace and wring his hands. A young man, wearing clothes similar to but not so grand as Djazir’s, entered the garden and reported to Djazir.
As the two of them conversed, too low to be heard, Bela strolled out from the grate. Al-Ashmar tried to prevent it, but Bela sped up just before his fingers could reach her. She walked up to Djazir as if she were asking for a bit of cream.
“By the spirits, thank you,” Djazir said loudly as he picked Bela up. “Now please,” he said. “Prepare yourselves.” Then he turned to the young man. “Prepare the procession immediately. You will find everything ready by the time you return.”
The young man bowed and walked back through the garden. Al-Ashmar heard a heavy wooden door close. Moments later, the palace’s bell pealed once more.
Al-Ashmar, heart quickening, searched the landscape of the grate, looking for any sign of a catch. He found something hard and irregular about halfway down on the left side, but had no idea how to release it.
As the empress’s guards positioned themselves on their white cloths, Djazir ladled a thick white liquid from a ceramic bowl using an ornate spoon. He held the spoon to Bela’s lips and waited as she lapped at it. Then he set Bela down on a silk pillow on the empress’s throne and petted her until her movements slowed.
Bela rested her head on her crossed paws and stared directly at Al-Ashmar. Her eyes blinked, twice, before slowly closing for the last time. Her lungs ceased to draw breath mere moments later.
The bell pealed again, long and slow.
Djazir moved to each of the guards in turn and administered a spoonful of the liquid. Their bodies were already lying down, but each fell slack less than three breaths after imbibing the poison.
Al-Ashmar worked frantically at the catch. Open, damn it! Open!
Djazir moved next to Rabiah’s motionless form.
“Stop it, Djazir!”
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Page 3
