by Mike Carey
I wake to see grey light, and feel something brushing my face. An instant later there’s a stabbing pain in my cheek—a black bird, its beady eye glaring into mine. My scream makes him recoil, and I find that the night’s dew has given some slack to the ropes: I can thrash my arms enough to scare him away. I do this for a long time, while he and his companions gather around me, making exploratory stabs until I manage to hit one directly on the beak and they all take off with harsh cries. I have a moment of idiotic triumph, before I remember where I am. And then the sun rises, and the air starts to burn.
Maybe memory becomes less sharp now, or at least less defined. There is a torture of thirst, and the skin baking and splitting on my face and exposed arms and legs. The ropes tighten again, pulling my body apart, and I cry out until I have no more voice. I can’t weep. My eyelids are squeezed shut, and I have a fear that they will shrivel in the heat, turn to ash and leave my eyes exposed to the merciless light. I hear again the harsh cries overhead, and think not of the carrion birds but of the djinni and their birdlike laughter. And see them again, as clearly as I did in childhood, when they gave me the gift that has doomed me. For the first time I wonder: what was it for? I saved the books, was that it? Did they take and shape a woman’s life, just so that she could preserve the words of others, not to make any stories of her own? And I remember my mother’s words: who can understand the ways of the djinni? The waste of it fills me, not with rage, but with a vast and empty sadness.
When the ground begins to shake beneath me, I take it for an illusion. I have borne enough sun to strike me mad a dozen times over. The shaking intensifies, comes closer, and now I hear voices, outside my head. They are women, and they seem to be arguing. This is so unlikely that perhaps it strikes me even then. But I’m beyond wonder. I keep my eyes shut. I listen to the voices.
Part of my gift is to understand words, all words, in whatever language. But try as I may, I can’t recall one word of what they say. I hear the voices: pity, astonishment, warning. And then a shadow comes between my eyelids and the punishing sun, and I feel hands on mine, cutting the ropes that bind me. And I open my eyes, and see her.
In the Mountains of the North
It took another eight days of travel for them to reach the foothills of the mountains. They did not attempt to negotiate the pass, which as Issi had said, was barely wide enough to take two camels abreast. Instead, Zeinab led them to a spring a few hours further away, not large but well-hidden, among so many rocks that it was hard to find any greenery. It was the farthest her parents had ever taken her.
“Even coming this far was a risk, twenty years ago,” Issi said. “The hills were full of bandits in those days. I hear it was better after Vurdik the Bald was caught, but by then most of us had found different routes.”
“And how safe is it now?” demanded Imtisar. “Have we come this far to be murdered in our beds? Not that we can call them beds.”
“There’s much less traffic through the pass these days, and none this far west,” Issi assured her. “We’ll be safe enough now.”
The rocks provided more shade than they had seen for days. The camels huddled discontentedly on the sand while the children, and then the women and men, scrambled over the stones to drink. The sun was near the horizon before all had drunk their fill, but even after the beasts were watered, the little spring still bubbled up clearly. Gursoon looked at it in satisfaction.
“This is a good place,” she said to Farhat. “Zeinab and Issi did well. We’ll stay here for a few days while we decide what to do next.”
They brought water to the sick woman, Rem, whom Farhat had adopted as her personal charge. The girl was improving day by day, though her face was still so burned and blistered that it was hard to make out her features. For the first two days she had been too weak to eat, and even now that she was gaining strength she moved slowly and painfully, and spoke little. But she stirred when she saw Farhat, pulled herself upright on the litter and took the drinking cup in her own hands, wincing only a little. She murmured her thanks, and sank back as if the effort had exhausted her.
“She’s a strange one,” Gursoon said as the two women withdrew. “Did I tell you, Farhat, that she knew we’d find water, that first day we found her? She told me we had to leave at once, and walk on after dark. She was right.”
“She has the sight,” Farhat said. “I’ve heard of such a gift before, but never seen it. But yes, I believe the girl knows things.” She stopped, looking around to check that no one could overhear. “Mistress Gursoon . . . There was something she told me that’s been weighing on me. But I don’t want to offend you.”
Gursoon was taken aback. “How long have we known each other, Farhat? Am I so easily offended? Come now, we’re friends.”
“I hope so.” The seamstress’s face was still uneasy. “Yesterday, then, while I was feeding her. She spoke to me, called me by name, though I hadn’t told it to her.”
“That’s strange,” Gursoon agreed. “But not alarming, surely.”
“I don’t know. Some of what she said was plainly wild talk; she’s not over the sunstroke yet. She spoke as if she knew me, and said she admired my work, as if I were some kind of artist. I told her the only work I did was with the needle, and she just nodded.” Farhat laughed. “She said I was a master of my craft. So I told her again she was mistaken, I was just a servant. Then she seemed to realise what she’d been saying:—she looked confused, and begged my pardon. But as I left, she said something else, something that has stayed with me. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right, she speaks so softly. But I think she said, ‘You’re not servants now.’”
Farhat darted a look at her mistress. Gursoon had dropped her hands to her lap, a sign of attention, but she did not seem shocked. “She said that to you?”
“Maybe to all of us. And I think she’s right. Look at where we are, how we’ll all have to live from now on. I’m not a servant here. None of us are.”
There was a silence between the two women. Around them, the women of the seraglio were making camp for the night. Most of the serving girls were helping to fasten tents or chivvying the children. Imtisar was scolding one of them for slowness. Nearby, Najla and Jumanah giggled together while two maids brushed out their hair, for all the world as if they were sitting on divans back in the palace, rather than on a barely shaded rock. For a moment they all seemed to Gursoon like children: little girls playing a game, as if they could raise the sultan’s palace in the desert by pretending they were still there.
“You’re right,” the older woman said at last. “Yes—we all have to change now. There’ll be arguments, of course. Probably screaming.” She looked out again over the busy camp. Maybe it was only a game, but it was a calm and orderly one, at least. For now, each woman had a role to play, and seemed content to play it.
“Farhat,” she said, “do you think we could keep this from the others for a day or two? Just till we can work out where we’re going.”
Gursoon spent an hour in conversation with Zeinab and Issi, questioning each of them closely on what they knew of the mountains and the land beyond. Issi had traded sometimes in the northern lands, and found them rocky and inhospitable, with few settlements and cold winters. Zeinab knew only that fear of brigands had kept her father from ever venturing north of here.
“Well,” Gursoon said, “even brigands must have needed food and shelter. If they’ve gone now, maybe we can find where they lived.”
“But what if they’re still here?” demanded Zeinab.
“In that case,” Gursoon conceded, “we’ll have to plan more carefully.”
She went to find Zuleika, and told her some of what she had in mind.
“It seems to me,” she finished, “that a woman of your abilities could be useful to us in this situation. But there are one or two things I need to know first.”
“You need to know whether the bandi
ts still live here,” Zuleika said, “and their numbers and strength. Was there something else?”
“Yes. It concerns you.”
Zuleika’s face was impassive. She tilted her head, inviting Gursoon to continue.
“In the next few days, we have to decide our own fate. Whatever we do, lives will be at risk. And if I’m to trust you in this task, I need to know who you are—what you are.”
“A few days ago, I saved the life of everyone here,” Zuleika said quietly. “Does that not lead you to trust me?”
“No. One day, if we live, we’ll all honour you for what you did then. But no, it doesn’t make me trust you. How long have you lived with us, Zuleika: three years? In all that time, you never quite seemed to belong. You’d walk into a room as if there was an enemy there. You could sit for an hour, quite still, as though you were waiting for something. And whenever you spoke to one of the guards, you looked him in the eye. No other woman would do that, not even me. I used to wonder about it sometimes. Now it seems I know why.”
“It’s true, I wasn’t bred to your life,” Zuleika said. “But what of it? Did I not do everything that was required of me?”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Gursoon said coldly. “Five years studying the art of murder, Zuleika? Were you telling me you were some kind of assassin?”
“Yes. That’s what I was.”
“Then, in the name of the Increate, what were you doing in a seraglio?”
“You can’t trust me unless you know this?”
“No.”
Zuleika sighed.
“If I tell you, I’ll be false to my oath. But I suppose it was already broken. Well then: I came to the seraglio to kill someone. And I stayed because I changed my mind.”
She waited for an answer, but Gursoon was suddenly silent, staring at her as if something she had long dreaded had at last come to pass. Zuleika sighed again.
“Sit down here,” she said. “I’ll tell you everything that happened.”
The Tale of the Assassin Who Became a Concubine
There was once a woman who was trained as an assassin. She lived quietly and alone, in a small house on the edge of the town, and was known to her landlord and her neighbours as the widow of a prosperous merchant. This was a lie, but the neighbours believed it for two reasons. Firstly, she asked for neither work nor charity from the women of the town, and therefore must have a legacy. And secondly, though she was still young and beautiful, she kept herself as strictly veiled as any old widow, and discouraged her inevitable suitors so effectively that none ever came to her door more than once.
The way the woman lived was this.
Within the town, at some distance from her home, was a school where assassins were trained and from where they might be hired. It was an extraordinary establishment, created and ruled by an extraordinary man, the so-called Caliph of Assassins, Imad-Basur.
A steady trickle of men came to the door of the school at night, seeking the removal of insults, business obstacles or otherwise intractable problems. Imad-Basur offered a discreet and efficient service, and further assured his clients that no assignment was too large for his skilled staff. (Given the scale of their charges, the question of a job being too small had never arisen; the assassins took lives, but not lightly.)
On occasion, however, a commission might arise that required particular discretion: where the target was hard to approach, say, or unusually suspicious. On such occasions, a messenger would be dispatched from the school to the home of the woman at the edge of the town. Over several years she had built up a reputation for reliability, and in recognition of this, and of her status outside the school’s official auspices, she was allowed to keep three-quarters of the payment for her work.
At that time, the desert kingdoms were wont to war among themselves for power and prestige. Every year or so, an army of hot-blooded young men would be sent out against some city, to avenge some or other insult. They would return in tatters, or else tear a hole through the city’s army and return with booty. The following year, the defeated city would retaliate. In this way the treasure of the various cities was kept in circulation, and the population of hot-blooded young men kept within manageable limits.
One sultan, however, had for many years avoided war, thus keeping his treasure to himself and his army relatively strong. This man, Bokhari Al-Bokhari of Bessa, had moreover extended his influence over the neighbouring cities through the judicious use of bribes, and through regular and lavish hospitality. The power he had thus acquired in the region had, of course, earned him several rivals, who found to their dismay that he was not to be provoked into fighting. With the traditional means of conquest denied to them, it was only a matter of time before one such rival approached the Brotherhood of Assassins.
Here an immediate problem arose. The sultan was old and cautious: he kept himself surrounded by bodyguards at all times, and only relaxed his guard in the company of his family, or among his concubines. Accordingly, the master of the assassins sent a messenger to the woman at the edge of the city, who agreed to meet the client. His proposal was for her to enter the sultan’s seraglio, from where she would be able to fulfil the commission without interference.
The woman did not immediately accept the assignment. Her hesitation had nothing to do with the eminence of the intended victim—the assassins made no distinctions of rank, except in their scale of charges—nor with any concern about difficulty. It was simply that she had not been among women for a long time, and had forgotten how to act in their company. Also, her client behaved toward her with more than customary arrogance, brushing aside her questions about the palace with a curt order to be quiet and follow instructions. But she reflected that her calling required flexibility—and besides, a girl had to live. She demanded a hefty retainer, counted it out to the last dirham, and consented to be brought to the palace by a silversmith in the client’s pay, posing as his cousin from Yrtsus. She was skilled in dealing with men—the sultan was charmed, and immediately entered into negotiations to acquire her.
So the assassin entered the seraglio.
She was unmoved by the perfumed rooms, the silk hangings, the gardens of fig and apricot trees, and the surpassing beauty of the inmates, any of which would have overwhelmed most interlopers. But she was not prepared for the life of the women’s court, nor for her treatment there. She found a perpetual quiet hubbub: women arguing, gossiping, swapping hair-combs, pins and stories, while children played freely around their feet. And she was accepted at once as one of them.
Since her fifteenth year the assassin had lived among men and, since she entered her training, with little human contact of any kind. It pleased her now to be spoken to as an equal, and to feel herself, for a while, part of a community. And since she felt no great sense of urgency about her allotted task, she resolved to delay its commission for a day or two.
That night the sultan sent for her to visit him in his chamber. Her plan had been to break his neck at his moment of ecstasy or smother him as he slept afterwards, and make her escape the same night. She did neither. Instead she bore the man’s attentions patiently, and returned next day to the women’s quarters.
Over the days that followed the assassin became accustomed to life in the harem. She spoke with the other women, questioning them about how each had come to this place. All of them had been sold to the sultan by their families or guardians, and some wept as they told of betrothals forcibly broken, or of beloved friends and sisters never seen again. But most seemed content enough with their lot. This puzzled the assassin.
“You were bought and sold like slaves,” she said. “Turned over for life to a man who can give you no pleasure.”
“True,” agreed the woman she spoke to. She was one of the oldest members of the harem, and the most respected by the others; she had taken an interest in the newcomer and spent part of every da
y in her company, teaching her the rules of her new life. “That was our misfortune,” she said, “and yours too, now. But we’ve built ourselves a life here. We’re free from want, and our children grow up in safety. And we do have a measure of power.” She smiled at the other’s expression of disbelief. “We know the sultan’s moods, and his weaknesses,” she explained, “the means by which he can be guided. He’s a man of whim, quick to take offence. In his younger days he would start a war for an imagined insult. But treated with care, he can be calmed and diverted. For twenty years now we have kept him peaceable, and in that time the city has flourished.”
This was certainly true: in fact it was the reason for the assassin’s presence there. But she could not speak of that.
The same night, she was summoned once more to the sultan’s chamber, and once more spared his life. The next day she spoke again to the woman who had befriended her.
“What would happen to you,” she asked, “if the sultan should die?”
The older woman frowned. “It’s true that we fear his loss,” she said. “The crown prince is as hot-tempered as his father was twenty years ago, and far more foolhardy. He’d send all us older women away, of course, and his wives are empty-headed creatures. Those of us that were left would have to begin the work all over again.”
The assassin was thoughtful for some time after this conversation. The sultan’s death would certainly lead to an invasion, and even if his sons won the resulting war, the city would return to the old cycle of battles and preparation for battles from which the women had rescued it. And either way, her new friend and many others with her would be cast out. She knew what this would mean for them. She had seen at first hand the fate of women who were owned and used by men, when they were no longer wanted. And it came to her that this was unjust, and not to be borne. The old concubine was both more honest and more intelligent than either the sultan or his enemy; furthermore, she reminded the assassin of one who had shown her kindness in her youth. She said to herself that these women deserved her protection, even at the cost of breaking her code.
