by Somaiya Daud
“Amani,” he said, and touched my arm.
I gave him a reassuring smile. “Ask me again when my parents are here,” I said.
“They will get here before the wedding,” he said. “I promise. The fighting makes it dangerous, but they will get here.”
He laid his hand against my cheek, and I was struck by what a miracle that was. All our relationship was spent in shadow. Even when I’d played the new bride, I’d been forced to navigate Maram’s personality, and that required a level of reticence in public that limited how we were around one another. I could not have imagined even two months ago that one day I would stand in the souk with Idris beside me as myself and be able to look up at him as I did now. That I would be allowed to conduct a conversation with our eyes alone or that he would be allowed to lean down and press a kiss against my forehead in reassurance.
Someone clearing their throat broke into our reverie and we pulled apart. ‘Imad stood a few feet away, a wide grin on his face. When our eyes met his grin widened and he swept into a bow.
“Sayidati,” he greeted.
“‘Imad,” I drawled. “What are you doing here?”
“Your wedding and the coronation procession has brought business caravans to town,” he replied. “Horse traders from Khemisset have come. I was hoping I could steal Idris away?”
“Of course,” I replied, then gripped Idris’s arm before he fled. “My future husband will remember that the Mas’udis were kind enough to allow him to keep the wedding gift from his prior marriage and that the stables are full.”
“Of course,” he said, grinning. “I only want to look!”
I waved a hand in dismissal and he and ‘Imad shot off like boys half their age, their guards only a few steps behind. When I turned away from them it was to find that I’timad had taken her brother’s spot, and with her was Khulood.
We stared at one another, silent. Since my unmasking we had rarely had time to speak. Their provinces had required their immediate attention, and I was likewise occupied with the public-facing duties Maram had assigned to me.
I raised an eyebrow. “Will you stare at me all day or can I shop while you observe?”
I’timad grinned. “I wondered if you had some of Maram’s frost or if you were that practiced an actor.” She came forward and looped her right arm through my left. Khulood came to stand on my right.
“Have you been skulking, waiting for a chance to get me alone?” I asked as we strolled through the souk.
“A little,” Khulood said. “We were curious.”
“Curious?” I asked. I paused at the fig seller, and Khulood was silent until our transaction was concluded and a bag of figs was passed off to one of the handmaidens.
“How much of the press release was true,” I’timad clarified. “If you did love our cousin.”
I huffed out a half laugh. “There seems little reason to bind him to me otherwise,” I said. “Maram likes him enough that she wouldn’t punish him in such a way.”
Khulood hummed noncommittally.
“Have I passed your test?” I said, and couldn’t keep a little of the sharpness out of my words. The gulf that had opened up between us had stung, though I’d understood it. Rabi’a had known and she had told Buchra. But the rest of the makhzen who’d cultivated close friendships with Maram hadn’t known how to treat me, though their friendships with Maram remained unharmed. I was an unknown quantity. What had they said to me and what to Maram, many of them wondered.
“Yes,” I’timad said. “You know, we do want to be friends. You’re marrying our cousin.”
“And someone who survived as you did in the Ziyaana,” Khulood added, “is not someone to be dismissed.”
It was not what I wanted, but what I wanted wasn’t realistic. I wanted to slip right back into the friendship I’d formed with them, instead of rebuilding from scratch. But there was no way to pick up the easy threads of conversations we’d had when they believed I was their future queen. And yet, I was a Ziyadi, soon to marry a Salihi, and a rebel. It was enough ground on which to begin.
* * *
When I returned to the palace, Maram was waiting for me in the courtyard. She rose to her feet while I instructed the handmaidens carrying my purchases to catalogue everything then store it. Maram watched, bemused, and when at last the girl departed she approached me.
“Your Grace,” I greeted her, sinking to my knees.
“Walk with me, cousin.”
Unlike I’timad, Maram did not loop her arm with mine. She looked as regal as ever, wrapped in the colors of her house, with a modest coronet settled in her hair. We strolled through wide halls and through gardens and courtyards, until we at last came to a terrace overlooking the horse paddock. I stifled a groan. Idris and ‘Imad were below as a trainer walked a new horse through its paces.
“There are worse vices,” Maram said with a smile. “I would ask how your time in the souk was, but that is quite evident.”
I opened my mouth to reply and was derailed by the subtle shift on her face. Her expression softened and the ever-present sarcastic lilt of her mouth eased. When I followed her gaze, it was back down to the paddock, where Aghraas had emerged in her usual attire, wrapped in a mantle against the cold. Beside her was Arinaas, similarly attired. One of her lieutenants had entered the paddock and dismissed the trainer.
A small portion of the Tazalghit forces had joined us in M’Gaadir to demonstrate the alliance between them and the crown. Arinaas would join us in the procession to the capital for Maram’s coronation. I’d been surprised to find that she and Arinaas had become fast friends and that the stoicism she wielded among the makhzen disappeared among the Tazalghit soldiers. Maram had noted that it shouldn’t have surprised me at all—Aghraas was a warrior, and the trappings of civil politics frustrated her. Among the warrior women she’d found the same sort of kinship I found with Maram now.
“Do you know, Galene has fled to Luna-Vaxor,” she said.
“I cannot imagine what you might have said to her to convince her,” I said on the edge of laughter. I liked Galene as little as Maram did, and she was, in truth, the planet’s greatest threat. Most of the High Vath had fallen in line, and would remain so as we extricated their claws from the planet. But if Galene chose to rally even a few of the generals to her cause, it would turn to all-out war.
“I asked her if she preferred I take up the Vathek tradition of sororicide,” Maram drawled. “She found, suddenly, that she had business interests in Luna-Vaxor and left soon after.”
I smiled. “Very well done.”
“M’Gaadir is yours,” Maram said.
My expression froze, my eyes still fixed on the sight below, before my mind caught up with my hearing and my head swung rapidly to look back at Maram.
“What?” I gasped. “You can’t be serious. It’s the heir’s seat.”
Maram did not look at me and instead continued to watch the events below. Aghraas and Arinaas stood side by side, their arms folded over their chests, as Idris and ‘Imad gesticulated wildly. Both of them had, like Aghraas, taken to the Tazalghit if for no other reason than the horse lords had much wisdom to impart. But the military leader of the Tazalghit enjoyed poking fun at them—she’d learned to ride for war, after all, and they rode for leisure.
“Amani, I say this to you because you have endeavored to be honest with me,” Maram said. “Aghraas … she is my forever. And even with whatever technologies are available, I do not relish the idea of natural heirs. But there must be a line of succession. For the stability of the state.”
My mouth gaped open. “Maram—”
“Besides,” she said. “Idris’s dowry is generous, but you should have something that is yours. This is yours.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I—”
At last, she looked at me. “I know that it is a gift with much attached to it,” she said. “And it may be that the monarchy does not survive me at all. But it’s a wealthy estate with a
good income. It will allow you to take care of your family without others questioning why such money must come from the crown. More importantly, it is a royal wedding gift—and those cannot be refused.”
My eyes remained wide. It was too much, I wanted to say. More than I had ever wanted or asked for.
“Say ‘thank you,’ Amani,” Maram said.
I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I said, and reached for her hand. “I will endeavor to be worthy of such a gift.”
She smiled. “You already are.”
* * *
Maram and I walked a little longer, but eventually she departed to a war cabinet meeting and I made my way to my quarters. The page at the door cleared his throat, and I paused.
“Visitors, sayidati,” he said. “They would not agree to wait elsewhere.”
I sighed and nodded. “Thank you. I will call if I have need.”
The doors opened and I felt my world tilt on its axis. My fingertips went numb. I stumbled through the doorway with a cry and threw my arms around my mother. She was shaking and she was thinner, but she was here, alive, holding me.
“Yabnati,” she murmured, and drew back. “Look at you.”
A hand tapped my shoulder and there, too, were my brothers. I burst into tears. They were both thinner than I remembered, and Husnain’s barely there beard had grown out in full in the mountains. Husnain, too, now had a few more inches on me.
“Oh no,” Husnain said, and drew me into his arms. “There’s no need for that.”
“Be quiet,” I said through my tears. “I will decide what I have a need of. Where is Baba?”
Husnain turned me bodily, and my father took me into his arms and pressed a kiss into my hair.
“You have been hard at work,” he said softly.
“I was so worried you wouldn’t be here in time,” I said.
“Never,” he said, “would we have missed your wedding day.”
32
With my family safe and in residence at last, plans for the wedding coalesced. It would be a true Kushaila wedding, such that M’Gaadir had not seen in years. I’d insisted on keeping it as small and private as possible—there was no version of myself, I thought, that would submit this private moment to public scrutiny. The crown—for it was not just Maram with which I had to contend, but various makhzen and members of her diwan—and I came to an agreement: one journalist with a single probe who was to be present at the main ceremony, but none of the private family affairs before and after.
I paced the small sitting room, trying to still my mind, to breathe. My family and the Salihis were meeting for a small party, where the details of the marriage contract would be hammered out and finalized. And in two days I would be married. I’d spent so much time not thinking about this moment, so fearful was I that my family would never come. And now—I dreaded it. My relationship with Idris had always been a private affair, and it highlighted for me how much my life had changed. I was not only Amani of the Kushaila, Amani of Tanajir, Amani, Tariq’s daughter. I was Amani, the queen’s councilor, the queen’s shield, the queen’s liaison. I would never again be a private citizen, and I had opened up my family to public scrutiny as well.
Dihya.
“Amani,” Idris said from the doorway, and came forward. “You must stop worrying.”
“How can I stop worrying?” I said.
“My aunts and cousins love you,” he said, taking my face in his hands. “They will show your family the respect they are due. They will show you the respect you are due.”
I laid my forehead against his chest.
“What if they hate each other?”
“That is hardly likely,” my mother said from the doorway. “Unless the Salihis have changed significantly since I left the planet.”
My mother was dressed more regally than I’d ever seen her in a deep blue velvet qaftan. It was simple, with a high collar, and beading from her throat to her navel. She wore a single ring, and her hair was held up by a silver net, studded with pearls.
“Sayida—” Idris cut himself off and froze, his eyes fixed on my mother.
“What is it?”
“This is your mother?” he asked, looking between us.
I frowned. “Yes.”
My mother, for her part, smiled. “Idris ibn Salihi,” she said. “You are the image of your father.”
Idris looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Oh, don’t gape,” my mother admonished him. “It is not so easy to kill me, though many have tried.”
“What an alarming thing to say to your daughter’s future husband,” I managed. “On a day when I am already alarmed.”
“Your mother,” Idris began at last, “is the daughter of Mustafa el-Fatihi, the dowager’s exiled brother.”
“I am rarely referred to as such,” she said, clicking her tongue. “More often I am called Moulouda al-Farisiya.”
“Who conquered half the world,” Idris continued. “Before the tesleet abandoned her father.”
My mouth went slack. “That’s what the tesleet called jeddou to? War?”
My mother slanted me a sad smile. “You can see why I did not like talking about it.”
“I don’t understand,” I said faintly. My dress felt too tight now, and Idris’s grip tightened on me as I felt myself sway. I was not some damsel, but I had endured much in the last few weeks, and it seemed that this, here, was where I would break.
I sat and braced my hands on the couch cushions, waiting for my mother to continue.
“You,” I started, then stopped. “You’re—the dowager’s—are you her niece?”
My mother laughed. “Yes. I was not always as you knew me, yabnati.”
A princess, I thought wonderingly. I had known many princesses in the last year. My mother reminded me of some. But general seemed to fit her very well. It was not a surprise that she’d hidden this—the Ziyadis had been hunted nearly into extinction, until the dowager, Najat, and Maram were all who were left. There was no sense in or reason for telling her children, who in turn might tell someone else.
“I will not tell you all of it,” she said, sitting beside me. “We were exiled after my father lost. And then the Vath came, and they hunted us down. I escaped their search by chance. And then they came again and took you away.”
My eyes widened. “Maram knew,” I thought.
“She saw me before you did—apparently Najat kept pictures of the two of us together at her hunting estate. She was here to greet us while you were at the souk and recognized me.”
“You conquered half the world?” I said, on the verge of laughter.
“The important thing to remember, Amani,” she said, patting my knee, “is I did not conquer all of it.”
I tried to still my thoughts. We still had contract negotiations ahead of us—and my mother arriving as the long-lost daughter of the Ziyadis would send a ripple through the palace. Dihya.
“Should we cancel—” I began, and Idris knelt in front of me before I could finish.
“Our wedding—our marriage—is a new beginning for everyone,” he said. “And our elders will behave accordingly.”
“My future son-in-law is right,” my mother said. “This is a chance to heal old wounds, not take up old wars. It will be good to see my aunt again. Besides—it will be much more fun to extract a city from the Salihis for my daughter, instead of conquering one for my father in war.”
* * *
The day I married Idris was bright and cold, the sky clear and heralding snow from the north. In the city, celebrations started early. The palace had cooked enough to feed every citizen, and even from my chambers I could see the confetti launched into the air and could hear the cry of mizmar horns. In the palace itself the air was filled with song, the beat of drums, and Kushaila celebrations. I had passed by the gate early in the day and singers were camped on the hillside, announcing our happy news.
The day was half gone when my mother and Maram came to help me get d
ressed. My arms and feet were wrapped in gauze to preserve the henna designs that were drawn on the night before, and the two of them worked quietly and efficiently to peel them off and help to wash off the dried paste. I bathed and my mother oiled my hair; while my hair dried, I ate.
The qaftan had been delivered early in the morning and hung on the wardrobe door. It was a heavy gown made of sea-green brocade, just shy of true Ziyadi green, embroidered in coral pink. Its bodice was studded with pearls, and a pattern of feathers swept out from the waist and down along the skirt. The collar was high, and from throat to waist were pearl buttons, situated in wound beds of coral thread. My hair was gathered up and wound at the back of my head, and held in place with a white pearl comb, streaked in pink and gray. Tala and my mother helped me into the qaftan and laced up the back, and Maram gestured a handmaiden bearing a velvet box forward. Inside it was a simple gold coronet, patterned with feathers and studded with small jewels.
My breath caught and a lump formed in my throat.
“Please don’t cry,” Maram said, setting it in my hair. “I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
I gave her a tremulous smile. She swept one of my curls behind my ear.
“From villager to princess,” she said softly. “Houwa’s shadow loosed at last.”
Tala set out a pair of bejeweled slippers that I slid into after I stood. My mother draped a sheer coral veil over my head; it was heavy and long, its tail longer than the trail of my gown.
“Ready?” my mother asked.
I nodded.
Outside, singers and well-wishers lined the halls. My mother held one hand, Maram the other, and behind us were my brothers and father. I would have to traverse the length of the palace to the celebration chamber, where only those known to us and the crown would be allowed. I thought of the girl I’d been when I first entered the Ziyaana, the girl I’d become during my time there. I thought of the Amani who had suffered being Maram’s proxy to the man she loved, who had walked a similar path laden in someone else’s jewels surrounded by strangers. She had not imagined a new world; certainly, she hadn’t imagined a world where her marriage would signal the rise of a new age.
