by Melanie Rawn
Allim sipped his qawah and suggested, “I would imagine you find the al-Ma’aliq name almost as helpful as my mother does? True, here it does not have the same long history as in Rimmal Madar, but your father was greatly loved, and his memory is yet green.”
Alessid made the required smile and nod: the former for the pun on his father’s nickname, the latter for the compliment. Allim then hesitated, as if about to lead into the topic he had come across the sea to discuss. But Alessid wanted to hear more about Rimmal Madar first—because he had a very good idea of what Sayyida had sent Allim to ask.
So he diverted the conversation by saying, “But have I heard something about your mother’s kin?”
Allim grimaced. “Chaydann al-Mamnoua’a has afflicted my mother with twenty-nine pestilences who are most unfortunately related to her by blood. I would not honor them with the term kin.”
Of the fifty offspring of Nizzira al-Ammarizzad, children and grandchildren, one sat on the Moonrise Throne. Sixteen were dead of various causes: war against the northern tribes, illness, accident, suicide—including poetic Reihan. The others who had been with Reihan lived in seclusion far from the court. That left twenty-nine relatives of Sheyqa Sayyida to plague her.
“My own mother is a gentle, quiet woman,” Allim continued, “who wishes only to tend her family and her country in peace.”
“Admirable.” Though it was of course a bald-faced lie; Sayyida would not have survived to inherit the Moonrise Throne had she been gentle and quiet.
“In fact—”
Ayia, here it was.
“—deeply as my mother loves my father, she often laments that he is not the kind of man who can rule a family the size of ours.” Another grimace. “Three of my brothers married al-Ammarizzad. They are quite despicably prolific.”
Sayyida had used those marriages to ensure her own survival in the years before her grandmother’s death. Presumably the time was not yet propitious for divorces, or perhaps the young men had grown fond of the ladies and Sayyida did not wish to make her sons unhappy and therefore dangerous. Alessid understood perfectly, however, that because the Sheyqa was without daughters of her own, daughters-in-law were the only candidates for the succession until granddaughters came of age. Another al-Ammarizzad ruling Rimmal Madar? Unthinkable. And unnecessary.
“With so many to be ruled,” mused Alessid, “it would be troublesome for even the cleverest man. More qawah?”
“Thank you. My mother,” Allim persisted, “to be quite frank, envies you your daughters.”
“And she wants to marry one of her sons to one of them, so that her grandchildren are doubly al-Ma’aliq—and have Tza’ab Rih doubly for an ally.”
Allim’s jaw dropped a little. Alessid smiled.
“Ayia, my friend and brother, it was not so very hard to guess. Sayyida is an astute woman. It is as well that you have no sisters, for I have no sons to send—one of them was divorced and no woman wants another woman’s leavings. My other son is happily married, with two children, and I would have every Azwadh in the country at my throat were I even to hint at a divorce from their adored Black Rose.”
Allim had recovered and said feelingly, for he had met the lady on a previous visit, “Any man who asked a divorce of Ka’arli Azwadh would be too stupid to find his own nose in a mirror.”
“Besides this, Oushta Sayyida requires an intelligent young woman who can keep her informed.”
“That is precisely her thinking. Would you consider it?”
Alessid pretended to do so, from politeness. At length he shook his head. “Ra’abi is the only one of an age to marry. Jemilha is but thirteen, Za’arifa ten, and Mairid only two. But I believe that even Ra’abi is too young to leave her home and marry a man she has never met and live in a place strange to her.”
“My brother Zaqir would of course come to Hazganni, so that she may see him before any betrothal is contemplated.” Blandly, he added, “It may be advisable for him to linger here. . .perhaps for several years.”
Alessid nodded with equal composure. Sayyida had waited many patient years to become Sheyqa of Rimmal Madar; all her sons presumably also knew how to wait. Allim, however, seemed determined to make sure one of his brothers did his waiting a long, long way from home.
“Zaqir is the youngest,” Allim went on, “and—though our mother pretends otherwise—quite her favorite.”
A tidy way of saying that Sayyida was already disposed to look upon this son’s daughters more favorably than the others.
Alessid mused, “I would actually consider sending her to Rimmal Madar, much as I would miss her—” He hid a grin as Allim’s eyebrows twitched. “—but for one thing. The Sheyqa Mirzah is Shagara. Though special leave was given for my sons and daughters to be called by my own name, they remain Shagara in all that matters.” Especially in the matter of the daughters who might bear Haddiyat sons. He had not the slightest intention of gifting his dear cousin, friend, and fellow al-Ma’aliq Sayyida with Shagara magic in the form of one of Ra’abi’s sons. “In that tribe, it is the men who marry outside the tents, not the women.”
“I am aware of this oddity,” Allim answered. “But as an exception has been made in the name they bear, surely a similar exception—”
Alessid shook his head. “I am sorry, but this is impossible. I greatly desire an even closer connection with Rimmal Madar. But my wife would divorce me if I sent him one of our daughters.”
“Divorce? Surely not! You have made her Sheyqa of Tza’ab Rih!”
“A task at which she excels. But she would be just as happy returning to her tent, and her family, and the ways of the Shagara.”
Allim set down his cup. “So if this marriage is to occur, Zaqir must come to live in Tza’ab Rih.” He actually managed to sound reluctant.
“Yes. And his children would be called al-Ma’aliq—without the al-Ammarizzad.”
Allim’s lips quirked in amusement, and it was Acuyib’s honest truth that came from his lips as he said, “He would not mind. He loathed our late unlamented grandmother even more than I did. Ayia, when I return home, I will tell my mother all this—and Zaqir, too. I think they will agree. The Sheyqa desires this marriage.”
Alessid nodded. He knew that Sayyida had in fact told Allim not to return without a firm commitment: The sons of Azzad’s agents in Rimmal Madar were now working for Alessid.
“Aqq Alessid, you have not asked what kind of man Zaqir is, or whether he would suit Ra’abi.” Allim’s eyes had narrowed slightly, but there was a gleam of humor in them—as if he knew very well that Alessid already possessed more, and more intimate, information about his brother Zaqir than did their own mother.
Alessid pretended to consider. “She will not be shy about stating her views. If he believes talking is important in a woman, he is either extremely wise or an absolute idiot. If the former, Ra’abi would admire him. If the latter—” He grinned suddenly. “—she would most likely slay him.”
“Ah. I begin to wish I was not myself married.”
Alessid smiled. “More qawah?”
“Would that we marry off the other girls so easily—and so exaltedly,” Alessid told his wife that evening.
Mirzah made no answer. She had put Mairid to bed and now sat on a couch upholstered in sky-blue silk, a basket of mending at her feet and one of Jemilha’s tunics in her lap. Alessid watched her needle skim in and out of the soft green fabric, taking almost invisible stitches with the speed of long practice.
Perhaps Sayyida had pretended to be a sweet, gentle, useless woman who preferred to sit, and sew, and ignore the larger world. Mirzah would never have done so, not even to ensure her own survival. Shagara women did not pretend meek deference. Earlier, Mirzah had described the arrival of the forty Tallib women whose turn it was to guest in the palace and her plans for their stay. Each tribe was invited to send their most important women for a month in spring or autumn, when the weather was most pleasant and it was easiest to travel. The visits were Mirzah’s
idea, as were the small gatherings at which the women of Hazganni met and talked with the women of the tribes—and found that despite differences in their everyday lives they had much in common. Mirzah’s next project would be to take groups out to a special encampment the Azwadh had volunteered to raise near the city, so that women who lived in houses could see how their sisters lived in tents.
The forging of a united country was not accomplished solely through the fellowship of men in war. Eventually there would be hundreds of marriages among tribes and townsfolk, and by the time the grandchildren were born, the people of Tza’ab Rih would think of themselves as one people, not many.
He watched Mirzah’s needle glide through Jemilha’s tunic, and he knew he had not only a wife but a true Sheyqa.
Still . . .
“Why don’t you have the servants do that?”
Her shoulders, covered by a white silk robe and draped in a flame-colored scarf, lifted in a shrug. She kept on with her sewing.
“For nearly two years you have been Sheyqa, and yet you do your own mending. Mirzah, my wife, not only are there servants to do it for you, but it truly need not be done at all. Jemilha and all the girls can have as many new clothes as they wish when their old ones wear out.”
“This is her favorite. I can hardly get her to wear anything else. And it’s not worn out. The fabric is perfectly good. She merely tore a hole in it, climbing a tree.”
Since coming to live at the palace, none of the girls could be kept out of the trees. Alessid understood. He’d spent his childhood leading his little brothers up every tree in Sihabbah, much to their mother’s anxiety. Jemilha, though, had a special reason for risking scrapes and bruises: She wanted the best possible view of everything, so she could draw its likeness. From the first moment pen and ink were set before her, she had scorned making letters for the more complex delights of making pictures.
“She could climb a hundred trees and tear a hundred holes in a hundred tunics, and—”
“That she may do,” Mirzah interrupted, her fierceness startling him. “You may call me Sheyqa of Tza’ab Rih, and we may live in this echoing great cavern with a hundred people waiting on us hand and foot—but if I want to mend my daughter’s favorite clothes myself with my own sovereign hands, then by Acuyib I will!”
“You miss your own tent,” he said.
Another shrug, and another silence, and another series of fine stitches.
“I understand, Mirzah.” He was not overly fond of living in a palace, either, except for what it represented. And he had spent much time, effort, and money changing what it represented. Workers had spent half a year gutting it of Sheyqir Za’aid’s atrocities. Most were merely ugly: tapestries of garish and improbable flowers, dreadful furniture with not an inch left uncarved. Some were truly ridiculous: the Sheyqir’s own crimson porcelain commode, which had small braziers on either side so the royal member would not be chilled and a cushiony velvet seat so that the royal rump would not be chafed. A few of Za’aid’s decorations were appallingly obscene: Alessid didn’t like to think about the lewd paintings in the bedchamber. The seaside estate had been even worse. Mirzah had ordered the disgusting playground of the al-Ammarizzad emptied from cellars to roof tiles, and given it to her brother Fadhil to be turned into a dawa’an sheymma staffed with Shagara healers. For this alone, Tza’ab Rih praised their Sheyqa’s name.
“I do understand,” he repeated, and she looked up from sewing long enough to give him a skeptical frown. “Come, leave that. I have something to show you.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Finish tomorrow. Jemilha can live for a day without her favorite tunic, and climb trees wearing something else. Come.”
He led her through the family’s quarters, down a flight of stairs, and along a stone corridor to a large double door. The wood was carved with an intricate tree that disguised the juncture. On the left panel was a lion; on the right, a griffin. Both beasts wore crowns.
He saw that she comprehended the symbols at once. The lion that was his own name. the griffin that had become his personal icon, and the tree of life that was the Shagara.
“These will be your rooms,” he told her. “I had hoped to have them ready for your birthday, to surprise you—but I think tonight you need to see them.”
“My rooms now are perfectly adequate.”
“Mirzah, don’t be so stubborn!” He opened the doors and heard her catch her breath. All the gaudy, tasteless al-Ammarizzad ornamentation had been removed. The entry hall was a soothing square of green tile floor and white walls and four rounded archways, with an intricacy of gilded plaster-work molding that spelled out excerpts from The Lessons of Acuyib dealing with family joys.
“To the right are your reception chambers,” Alessid told his wife. “To the left, your private rooms. And straight ahead—”
He guided her toward the far portal. Beyond a carved folding screen was an indoor garden, but without plants. Instead, artisans had created a cool, inviting haven of rich color and gentle sound. From a central fountain water chirruped into a shallow square pool tiled in a whirl of blues. The raised edge was green, as were the floors and the walls as high as Alessid’s knees; a winding maze of gleaming trellises rose ten feet high, dappled with flowers. Above this the tiles were blue again, darker and darker as they rose to the ceiling: a deep sapphire dome misted with tiny silver stars. From the dome’s apex depended delicate silver hazziri on nearly invisible chains that chimed counterpoint to the fountain. An arching alcove in the north wall contained a carpet, a real one, of blue and green and rose, matching pillows, and a small recessed shelf for a lamp and books.
“This, too, is yours,” Alessid said softly.
Mirzah glanced up at him. “Mine?”
“Yes—and any guests you care to share it with.” He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her toward the softly carpeted alcove. “I was hoping to be the first... .”
She froze beside him. “No. There will be no more daughters to sell off in marriage—and no more Haddiyat sons that I will outlive.”
He touched her cheek, trying to soothe her. She jerked her head away. Telling himself to be patient, he began, “Kammel’s death—”
“—came too soon, even for one of his kind. How long will his brother live? Shall I go on having babies to replace the sons I will lose?” Her voice rose, her words quickened. “I’m young enough still. How many do you want, husband? How many sons and daughters does the al-Ma’aliq require?”
“Mirzah, you don’t mean this.”
“I mean it with every bone in my body, Alessid.”
“Ayia,” he said coldly, “then I will trouble you no more. There are other beds, after all.”
“Ayia,” she responded in the same tone, “and should I learn that you have lain down in one, I will divorce you as is my right and take my children back to the Shagara tents.”
Alessid al-Ma’aliq was not accustomed to being thwarted; still less was he familiar with being threatened. For a full minute he simply failed to react.
In that time his wife turned on her heel and left the ever-blooming garden he had created for her delight. He heard the soft whisper of her slippers on the tiles. The opening and closing of the doors. The mindless chatter of the fountain and the maddening tinkle of the hazziri. He looked around at the shining tiles—a mimicry of living things and glinting stars, a chill illusion.
To the unreality, he said, “Does she think I do not grieve?”
He left the cold tile garden and never set foot in it again.
Ra’abi el-Ma’aliq and Zaqir al-Ammarizzad el-Ma’aliq duly met, and genuinely liked each other despite the promptings of their parents’ ambitions. She was pleased by his looks, his manners, his elegance, his education—and his deference to her greater position here in Tza’ab Rih while never behaving as anything less than the sheyqir he had been born. For his part, he was pleased that not only was she as lovely as his brother Allim had said, and as clever, but her wor
ds were as interesting as they were abundant. In 654 they were wed, and a year later she bore a son. Mirzah wept when she was told the child was a boy, but by the time she went to see him her eyes were dry and she was smiling.
Mirzah remained Alessid’s Sheyqa, capable and conscientious, but she was no longer his wife. He was discreet about his infrequent pleasures. He might have taken an official concubine, of course, but as deeply as Mirzah had injured him, he would not injure her dignity by putting another woman in the palace. Indeed, he never took a woman inside its walls. Instead, when he traveled Tza’ab Rih—which he did often, showing himself to the people and familiarizing himself with their lives and problems—he invariably chose a young widow who never afterward remembered who her lover had been. Kemmal had been most obliging.
The young man had explained himself to his father on the night he offered the talishann. “I understand my mother’s pain. I understand the guilt she feels. Because of her, I am gifted with that which makes me honored among the Shagara, that which allows me to do what other men cannot. But because of her, I will never father a child, and I will be dead at an age when other men are not even old.”
“You may understand, but I do not. Other women have borne Haddiyat sons—Meryem, Leyliah—”
“She suffered greatly, losing Kammil so young,” Kemmal murmured. “Forgive me, Ab’ya, but I think I may be the only one who knows what she feels. He was my twin brother, as close to me as my own thoughts.”
Stung, Alessid said, “He was my son, too.”
“I do not think she ever allowed herself to acknowledge that Kammil or Addad or I might be Haddiyat—just as she does not speak of it regarding her brother Fadhil. But now she cannot escape the knowledge.”
“You mean to say that if she could be guaranteed only daughters—”
“Yes. Only watch her with Mairid. The joy of a girl-child is unencumbered.” Kemmal paused a moment, then said, “I know that you cherish my mother. I know you would prefer to be her husband rather than another woman’s lover. To go from woman to woman reminds you too much of your own father, and the tales told of—”
