Court of Lions

by Somaiya Daud

  “So none of them are Nadine’s?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she replied dryly. “They need not be Nadine’s—only susceptible to gifts. That’s how she operates.”

  “Can any of them be trained?” I said. “Or turned?”

  “Two. Perhaps.” She said it with a touch of disdain that made me smile. Tala was good at her job—she had to be. And well trusted by the Vath at that to be entrusted with my care. I would take her word for the other handmaidens.

  “I can ask Her Highness if we can interview more to replace them. But I think two or three need to be made permanent members of the household.”

  “Are you already shifting things around?” Idris’s question suggested a challenge, but there was an approving smile in his eyes.

  I turned to Tala. “Start interviewing,” I said. It could not help Maram’s security that every time she traveled the people who went with her were strangers. “We need a household whose loyalty is to us and us alone.”

  “I will bring a dossier of eligible candidates by tomorrow,” Tala said, inclining her head.

  “Thank you. And Tala?” She paused. “Keep a watch over them. I don’t trust them.”

  * * *

  The local diwan—ministry—met several days a week in a long, multilevel gallery on the estate. They were, if the stewardess was any proof, likely a well-oiled machine. But I knew it would help to have Maram seen at these events, and to eventually have her participate. So it was to the gallery that Idris and I went early that morning.

  “Have you ever sat in on these meetings?” I asked him, my hand tucked into the crook of his elbow.

  “When I’m at Al Hoceima, if the diwan is in session, yes,” he said. “They are not interesting.”

  I smiled. “Perhaps. But they are useful.”

  The gallery was a traditional diwan—a council chamber. There was the main floor, with lush, low-backed couches lining either wall, divided by a pathway that led to a dais on which sat a Kushaila-style throne. Rising up on all sides of the circular chamber were three more levels, each with ornately carved pale wood railings and columns, behind which were rows of backless couches. This was where the ruling magistrate or the sovereign themself would receive complaints from locals and run government. It was at the northern end of the estate, close to one of the main gates to receive the local populations on the visiting day.

  The gallery was already filling up with various magistrates and officials. It took only a moment for them to realize that Idris and I were among them, and as ripples moved through water they sank to their knees one by one. When they came to their feet a nervous air took hold. The cloud of conversation disappeared entirely, and instead they looked nervously at one another.

  If this was the way Maram was greeted any time she entered such a setting, no wonder she was always ready to bite.

  “Please,” I drawled in Maram’s customary tone, “pretend I am not here.”

  Idris and I made our way not to the throne, but up a level where the dowager queen or the sovereign’s extended family might take a seat. There was a trellis, hiding us from view, but a small monitor at the railing’s level. With us out of sight, though perhaps not out of mind, the diwan resumed its quiet air of conversation.

  I’d intended only for Maram to be seen—if she truly wanted to be what I thought she was capable of being then she needed not only the makhzen but the wizaraa’ as well. Without the ministers on her side, there was no one to govern effectively—it was the wizaraa’ who’d kept us as afloat as we were. But the longer I listened to their discussions, the clearer it was how ineffective they were. And it was not their fault; they did their best with the resources they had. The problem, of course, was what they had was nothing. They could settle petty disputes, they could ameliorate some suffering, but M’Gaadir and its surrounding lands’ largest problems could not be solved by them. The Vath had taken, claimed, and ruined almost everything.

  The longer the diwan went on, the more it confirmed what I’d thought but had resisted saying to Idris. He believed that there was a world where he could bend the Vathek system to his will but would go no further. What he wouldn’t acknowledge was that the imperial machine had been built to break us. And it was not one meant for repurposing—as poetic as it might have been, the hammer would not yield a crop. It would not nourish our children or give succor to our elderly. And even as Maram became more powerful, gathered more allies, ensured her coming reign, countless people would die. The planet would not survive the time it took for her to take the crown. It would die before Mathis did.

  Yet and still—none of the makhzen families had the strength to stand against the regime. Even allied with Maram. Even allied together.

  The rebels, however, did.

  Maram’s opposition alongside the rebels could free us once and for all.

  I could do this. I could forge a connection between two factions that would save the planet. I thought of my brothers and my parents—they’d suffered for my choice to side with the rebels before. Could I risk their safety a second time? I remembered my brother charging the Garda as they took me. That Husnain would make the same decision in my place should not have comforted me, but it did. My parents had given up on seeing a just world, but it was my responsibility to do this. If I could change the future, then it was an obligation.

  I would do what was necessary.

  03. Maram

  STARDATE 4393, DAY OF THE IMPERIAL WEDDING

  Maram ofttimes wondered if she had a self-destructive quality. That was the only explanation she could find for why she’d wandered into Fatiha’s office in the early morning while waiting for Aghraas, and turned on her holovision. It was the only explanation she could find for making sure to tune in to the wedding she’d made sure not to attend as herself. Truly: the only reason for why she would want to see her twin parading around in clothes meant for her.

  Amani was a vision in tea and champagne gold, her ears heavy with jewelry, her back straight, head poised. The bridal gown Maram had chosen hung off her as if it were meant for her, and the ways her eyes avoided the many camera probes flying about as she walked through the crowd was demure and regal. Maram’s fingers twisted angrily at the skin of the inside of her arm as she watched Idris bow over her hand, then guide her to the settee and divan at the center of the room.

  What a golden couple they were, she thought angrily.

  All her life Maram had known she would marry Idris. It was a contract agreed to before she was born and solidified before her mother’s death. She’d never questioned it before, but now watching the two of them she felt an awful twist in her stomach, as if a knife were scraping her insides. Every time she thought of it she felt a rising tide of panic that only grew exponentially when she told herself she would be queen and this was part and parcel of that. Without Idris there was no crown, a thing that had not been true for any of the previous queens of the Kushaila.

  It is a question of blood, she’d heard someone say. Idris was meant to temper and dilute her, to return the crown to whom it belonged—half of her did not belong. Her Vathek blood did not belong.

  Amani didn’t look like her, she thought. Amani looked as a true Kushaila monarch might—the gown and her soft smile and the steel with which she carried herself. She seemed warm and alive. Maram’s elder half sister Galene was not so, and indeed neither was Maram herself. She rarely smiled so kindly to those she loved, and never to strangers. Nor did she touch Idris as Amani did, hand gently on his arm, shoulder to shoulder—the sort of touching that hinted at an intimacy that only ever bloomed in private.

  Her hand pressed against her belly.

  The door to Fatiha’s office opened, then shut. She expected the soft murmur of voices as Fatiha conversed with yet another page, and instead there was silence.

  Maram considered shutting off the holo and didn’t. Instead, she turned to face Aghraas, face as blank as she could make it. The falconer was dressed in a modest high-collared coat today, al
ong with her customary trousers and boots. Her braids were bound up at the back of her head in a single clip, and slung over her back was a bag Maram knew was filled with various instruments of her trade.

  Aghraas examined her in silence and then lifted her gaze to stare at the holo of Amani and Idris.

  “You don’t wish to be present at your own wedding?” she said, voice low.

  Maram’s jaw tightened. “No. I do not.”

  “Why?”

  Aghraas’s gaze had returned to Maram, and she fought the urge to squirm. Her gaze was direct and unavoidable. There was no fear, no desire to look away. For the first time Maram had to fight not to look away, not to cast her gaze down.

  She wanted to say many things in reply, but the core of her was reliable. Deflection was an old friend.

  “You have not earned the right to ask,” she said.

  Aghraas inclined her head. “Apologies for my tardiness. I didn’t count on having such a hard time finding my way out of Shafaqaat.”

  Maram waved her hand at the holovision, watched it wink out, then turned back to Aghraas.

  “Shafaqaat is thirty minutes away at most,” she said. “You are three and a half hours late.”

  “By air car, Your Highness. Few in Shafaqaat want to lease an air car to a woman wearing daan,” Aghraas said.

  “Don’t tell me you walked?”

  “Normally a family is willing to let me ride on the back of their wagon,” Aghraas replied.

  “Wagon?” Maram could not keep the horror from her voice. “That’s … two hours?”

  “Four,” Fatiha interjected from her desk without looking up from the stack of tablets.

  “Indeed,” Aghraas said with a smile. “Not to worry. Most nights I don’t go all the way to Shafaqaat. There’s plenty of land outside the estate that’s good for camping. The journey most days is much faster.”

  “Camping?”

  “Indeed, Your Highness.”

  “You can’t camp outside the estate,” Maram said.

  “Of course I can. It’s perfectly legal.”

  “I’m not worried about the legality. Why should you camp when we have room in the estate?”

  Aghraas raised an eyebrow. “Do you suggest that I camp on the estate grounds?”

  Maram felt as if she were being strangled. “No. We have rooms—why didn’t you say something? Are you the child of marauders that you should just endure the elements as a matter of course?” She turned to Fatiha. “Put her up in the master of falcons suite. No one is using it.”

  “Your Highness—”

  Maram spun back around to face the falconer. “This is a royal command,” she said firmly. “I will not have you camping on the borders of my property like some vagabond out of antiquity. Bring whatever things you have stashed away in … trees or rocks or what have you—Fatiha will install them in your new apartments.”

  Aghraas bowed, and when she rose and her eyes met Maram’s she felt a thrill. She had impressed her or surprised her, she thought.

  “You are kind, Your Highness.”

  “I am practical,” she countered, and left the room.

  * * *

  It took no time at all to situate Aghraas into the apartments in the estate, and a little while later they rode out to continue what they’d spent the last two weeks doing. Each day they would ride out into the estate, sometimes alone, sometimes with an escort. Aghraas would take a survey of the land—any creatures they saw, whether in the air, on the ground, or in the lakes and streams that covered the estate. What was indigenous to the region was recorded, what was not was tagged, and anything that hadn’t been spotted since before the conquest was similarly tagged.

  The day passed quickly. In truth, Maram didn’t understand the work. It seemed they were going quadrant by quadrant, but animals relied on no such classification to choose where they ate or bred. Perhaps there was a science to it, but in the meantime, she was happy to tag along. As much as she enjoyed running the estate, she liked riding through it and discovering what lived on it even more. Aghraas was not easy to be with—she was counter to everything Maram knew and understood. And yet she couldn’t talk herself out of these excursions. The falconer had been doing her work long before she’d come for this stretch of visit, and she would continue it after she left—

  Her mind veered sharply away from thoughts of leaving. It was always hard to leave Dar al-Zahra’, but she’d already extended her stay. In truth, it should have been her at the wedding. It was not an event open to the public, excepting journalists and their cameras. It was not an event for which she needed a replacement. And yet—

  It was a few hours ahead of sunset and the sky was red, the air hot. Fall had well and truly arrived, or so she’d thought until now. Maram reclined on a large rock, her legs crossed, her jacket spread beneath her. Below her was Aghraas, similarly stripped out of her jacket, and leaning over a wide stream. She watched as she splashed water on her arms and throat, then over her face, before taking a large gulp. Her copper skin gleamed with droplets of water and there was something serene about her as she turned her face heavenward and closed her eyes as she absorbed sunlight.

  Maram watched her without guile or shame. She’d never seen anyone like her—none among the Vath or Andalaans possessed the surety of movement that she did. Where she chose to go was where she would be, no matter what. She turned her face away from the sky and to Maram and grinned, though Maram didn’t know why. She felt an answering grin on her face and a strange warmth in her chest, unweighted by the deep distrust that naturally governed her relationships. She watched her as she climbed the rock easily and collapsed beside her. Wordlessly, she held out a sheepskin to her.

  “Drink, Your Highness,” she said when Maram stared at it uncomprehending. “It’s only water—the freshest on your estate.”

  Maram took the sheepskin hesitantly and put the opening to her lips. It seemed suddenly important to her that she be able to accomplish this very easy thing to Aghraas’s satisfaction. But in the end, she choked on the water and it spilled out of the sheepskin and down her front. Aghraas didn’t laugh, only held out her hand to have it back so that she too might drink. When she held it out Aghraas made a sound of curiosity and instead of taking the sheepskin of water, took hold of Maram’s wrist.

  Maram flinched and dropped the bag between them—Aghraas seemed not to notice, her eyes fixed on the palm of her hand. A flush of shame worked its way up Maram’s throat. It was the childish sort of shame she thought she’d left behind when she’d returned to the Ziyaana, churning inside her and upsetting all the old voices that taunted her as a child. Aghraas’s thumb traced slowly over the lines of henna stained into the palm of her hand where few people would see or even think to look. The lines meant nothing—they were only meant to be evocative of Kushaila design. And yet by being on her palm at all they meant everything; they were testament to her weakness, her inability to turn away from her Kushaila heritage.

  Aghraas held out a second hand silently and Maram, in turn, placed her second hand in it wordlessly. When at last she released her hands Maram didn’t know what to do with them. She laid them over her knees and stared at the rock surface between them.

  “They would be better hidden on your feet,” Aghraas said quietly.

  Maram didn’t look up. “I cannot see my feet, nor can I routinely take off my slippers to look at them,” she replied. She hated that the admission had come out, however lopsided and misshapen. As if she were still a girl fascinated by what her mother had had, by what her mother had worn. By what her grandmother had worn. She was a woman now, a Vathek Imperial Heir of high standing.

  “You can make fun,” she said stiffly, her eyes fixed now on a spot above Aghraas’s head. “I know how it must seem.”

  “How must it seem?”

  Still Maram would not look at her. Inside, the shame had turned to dread and fear and anger. And nursed in its center was grief.

  “A half-breed that is hated and re
viled equally by all has built for herself a Kushaila retreat where she can pretend,” she said.

  She jumped when Aghraas’s thumb swept over her cheek and turned her head just so. No one touched her—no one ever dared. She hated it, how she craved it—the world blurred momentarily as her eyes filled with tears.

  “Do you love your mother?” Aghraas asked.

  Maram exhaled a trembling breath but didn’t answer. Aghraas’s hand remained on her cheek. Maram wanted to— She didn’t know what she wanted. The hand wasn’t enough and yet was too much at the same time.

  “I love mine … even when she is angry with me.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “Why is she angry with you?”

  Aghraas smiled sadly and withdrew her hand. Maram remained perfectly still as it found hers in her lap.

  “She wishes me to come home—I was only here to deliver a message. I became … distracted.”

  She clung to this conversation—anything to take the focus off her. “Isn’t … isn’t this your home?”

  Aghraas shook her head. “This is where we’re from. But home is elsewhere.”

  For long moments Maram didn’t know what to say. She watched Aghraas, who in turn watched their clasped hands. “Why are you here, Aghraas?” she asked at last.

  Her grip tightened around hers. “Where else should I be?”

  10

  There was one person who would be able to help me contact the rebels.

  Tala arranged for Furat and I to meet in a garden adjacent to the royal suite. They were closed to visitors and guarded besides, but Tala promised to make sure Furat could gain entry without being remarked on or remembered. Pathways through the garden were laid with green and white tile, and the whole of it was built around a central gazebo, its structure made of pale wood, its roof tiled in red and silver. From its apex hung a beautiful brass lamp with four glass sides.

  Furat stood directly beneath the lamp, her red-brown hair gleaming in the light. I eased the hood from my hair when she turned around, bringing my face out of shadow, and she grinned as she recognized me. Furat, I realized as I hugged her, was one of my few true friends in the Ziyaana. My love of her was uncomplicated—she was a kind woman and a rebel, and I wished that I was not so limited in my ability to see her.