by L-J Baker
Adijan gritted her teeth. From a lifetime of experience, she knew there was no profit in arguing with anything Auntie prefaced with, “I promised your dying mother.” She did feel better lying down. Much as she hated every moment’s delay in fetching Shalimar, she wouldn’t do Shali much good if she collapsed in the street on the way to Nabim’s.
“By the Eye, I don’t know where you get it from,” Takush continued. She busied herself measuring powders into a cup of water. “Your mother was never like this. Practical to fault, was our Lahkma. Placid and sensible. You never met a more even-tempered, hard-working, pleasant person. Not like you. All these dreams and schemes. And the only time anyone beat Lahkma, he paid very well for the privilege, I can tell you. Silver up front. Perhaps I did wrong in teaching you how to count and read.”
Adijan consoled herself with the thoughts that Shalimar wouldn’t be in any physical danger at her brother’s house, and she could redeem the debt tomorrow.
“Drink this.” Takush offered Adijan the cup. “Mrs. al-Bakmari swears this will help your flesh knit on the inside. With that husband of hers, she should know all about beaten bodies.”
Adijan dutifully drank the bitter mixture. Before sleep sucked her away, she remembered Hadim coolly ordering his servants to drag her out of his presence. He hadn’t had the guts to watch the dirty business he commanded others to do for him. What did he plan to do with Shalimar?
The next morning, Adijan carefully eased her way along street after street of shouting hawkers, haggling stall owners, chattering shoppers, braying donkeys, and laughing delivery boys to be brought up short by the silent red cloth of mourning nailed to the rear door of Merchant Nabim’s house.
Dead?
Adijan bit her lip as she stared at the blood-colored banner. Still, it might not be for Nabim. His wife might’ve died. Even if the merchant were dead, whoever inherited his business was obliged to honor his debts to his creditors – even so minor a one as Adijan.
Imru, his beardless face artistically daubed with red smears of mourning, invited Adijan to sit on the cushions beside his desk. The red was lip paint not real blood. She also noticed the larger than normal stacks of cloths waiting his attention.
“Sad, sad days.” Imru signed the Eye above his chest. “May the Eye greet and honor the soul of our dearly departed master.”
“May the Eye bless him,” Adijan said. “So, he is dead? When? How? Only two days ago, he was fine.”
The eunuch glanced around before saying, “It was very sudden. Died in his bed.”
“The envy of many men.” She piously traced the symbol of the Eye. “It was peaceful, then?”
Imru’s lips twitched. “Not exactly. His heart burst.”
After a moment of incredulity, Adijan smiled. “He wasn’t sleeping, then?”
Imru shook his head, his grin finally escaping his control.
“He wasn’t alone?” Adijan asked.
“Oh, no.”
“Not his wife?” Adijan’s mind grappled with the unlikely image of the corpulent Nabim slumping lifeless over the wizened body of his wife on that whore’s bed.
“My glorious master died in the arms of the most beautiful woman this side of the Devouring Sands. The envy of many men.”
Adijan laughed. Nabim seemed so unlikely a candidate for cheating his wife under her own roof. And to be caught out so irrevocably! This juicy tidbit would be the delight of the prim and snooty neighborhood for years to come.
She struggled for composure. “Who was she?”
“The mistress hasn’t seen fit to enlighten me with that information.”
Adijan shook her head. This story was one to tell back at the friendly house. “Who inherits the business?”
“The widow. They haven’t officially read the Will yet, but she’s already taking a personal interest.” Imru spread his hands in a gesture that took in the large piles of receipts, tally sticks, and orders. His raised eyebrows spoke, where his lips would not, how trying he was already finding his mistress’s intervention.
“I’ve got a bill of debt.” Adijan produced the cloth woven with Nabim’s signature pattern of yellow, blue, and green threads through it. “Can you pay me off, or will I need to see her?”
“It’s a difficult time. The embalmers are still here. She has many other preoccupations.”
“I know. But this is urgent. I need the money now.”
Imru cocked his head. “Does this have anything to do with those bruises?”
“Yeah. Can you talk to her? Please.”
Imru stood. “I can’t promise anything.”
Adijan followed him into the corridor, another giggle welling up inside her. Imru stopped short of the beaded curtain to what had been Nabim’s office. He put a finger to his lips before turning away to step into the room.
“What is it?” The widow’s voice stabbed from behind the curtain.
“Forgive me, glorious lady,” Imru said. “One of my late master’s creditors has applied for a most urgent discharge of the debt.”
“This is indecent,” she said. “Couldn’t the vulture wait? My husband is barely stiff.”
Adijan guffawed. She clamped a hand over her mouth.
“What was that?” the widow demanded. “Someone laughing? In this house of mourning?”
“It sounded like a cough to me, mistress,” Imru said.
“How could anyone find mirth in my misfortune?” the widow continued. “It’s inhuman and impious.”
“I’m sure, glorious madam,” Imru said, “that the whole world weeps as much as you for your loss.”
There followed a tense silence, in which Adijan imagined the widow glaring suspiciously at Imru and the eunuch maintaining his expression of neutral sincerity.
“Shall I bring in the creditor, mistress?” Imru asked.
The widow grunted.
Imru poked his head out of the curtain and winked at Adijan. She removed her fez and stepped into the room. The tight figure of the Widow Nabim perched in the centre of her late husband’s large chair. She glared at Adijan like a jealous she-dragon guarding her treasure.
Adijan bowed low. “Forgive my intrusion in your time of sorrow, oh munificent and generous madam.”
“A messenger boy?” the widow said. “You said this was an important creditor.”
“Most perceptive mistress,” Imru said, “Adijan was one of the most trusted of your late husband’s special couriers. She undertook many deliveries for him that –”
“That is a woman?” The widow leaned forward to peer at Adijan. “A brawler in men’s clothes? I see my ignorance of my husband’s affairs is monstrous. Oh, All-Seeing Eye, give me fortitude. I had no idea Nabim had to soil himself with dealing with such riff-raff and rabble.”
Adijan carefully maintained a polite smile. “If you will forgive me, oh generous madam, I have a bill of debt for three obiks.”
The widow signaled Imru to pass her the cloth. Her face folded into sharp-edged planes when she frowned. “Three obiks. For deliveries? Imru, is this a forgery?”
Adijan gritted her teeth and reminded herself that the woman’s husband had just died in bed with another woman – a younger, more beautiful woman.
“No, mistress,” Imru said. “Adijan undertook special deliveries which the late and much lamented master entrusted to no one else. He –”
“Special? Trusted? This beggarly riff-raff? I can’t believe –” The widow’s eyes narrowed as if she peered into a sand storm. “Was it you?”
“Forgive my ignorance, oh wondrous madam,” Adijan said. “I know not –”
“Imru, was it her?” the widow asked. “Did she bring that – that thing from the enchanter?”
Adijan and Imru imperfectly concealed their surprise.
“It was!” The widow clapped her hands and leaped to her feet. “Convicted by your own face! Oh, All-Seeing Eye, help me! Imru, fetch the city guard. Fetch the caliph himself! Don’t just stand there! I’ll have you flogged.”
“I’m not stupid,” the widow said. “I saw her! That – that creature. With my Nabim. I burned the piece of cloth with its filthy instructions and incitements with my own hands. He’s the last honest woman’s husband you’ll capture and ruin with your spells and sorceries.”
“Wise and benevolent madam, I’m just an ordinary person,” Adijan said. “If I were an enchantress, I’d hardly be running errands for a merchant.”
“Adijan is telling the truth, oh glorious mistress,” Imru added. “Her origins could not be more humble.”
“I’m happily married,” Adijan said. “Your esteemed and glorious husband held no interest for –”
“Married, eh?” the widow said. “How unlikely. How would you like it if – aha!” Her eyes glittered and her thin lips twisted in a grim smile. “Oh, yes! Perfect. Imru, bring her.”
The widow shoved past the eunuch and marched out, setting the beaded curtain swaying. “Quickly. I’ll have you flogged!”
Adijan and Imru shared a look.
“What was that all about?” Adijan asked. “Is she unbalanced? I just want my three obiks.”
Imru shrugged and spread his hands. “We’d better go or she will whip me. She has your bill cloth.”
Adijan silently cursed and trailed the eunuch out. As they neared the central courtyard, the wails and moans of the professional mourners grew more distinct. To her surprise, she counted only four. She would’ve expected twice that number for someone as rich as Nabim. The widow’s lamentations weren’t so large, then, that they stretched her purse very wide.
Imru steered Adijan through an ornate archway into a large chamber. A group of well-fleshed people looked up from plates of honeyed dates, pomegranates, and figs. Two of the women looked like female versions of the late Nabim. Neither of his bereaved sisters had torn much off the ends of her hair.
Adijan bowed low and was unsurprised to receive no acknowledgement.
The widow Nabim burst into the chamber from the other doorway. She held a clenched fist out before her. Her sticky-faced relatives watched with only mild interest as she bore down on Adijan.
Adijan dropped to her knees and bowed so low her forehead touched the carpet. She ignored the sharp pain from where Hadim’s servants had bruised her bottom ribs. “Oh, glorious and munificent madam, may I be flogged one thousand times at the gates of Paradise if I have offended you. I humbly beg and implore you to grant me the little that is owed me.”
The widow grabbed a handful of Adijan’s hair and yanked her head up. “I’ll give you what you deserve!”
Adijan barely glimpsed a dull flash of metal before the widow stepped back and straightened with an unpleasant smile.
“There,” the widow said. “For all those honest, Eye-fearing wives you’ve robbed before me, I’ll have our revenge. May she plague you and every husband of yours she wears out. Now, Imru, get her out of my house. If she ever casts a shadow on my doorstep, she’ll be whipped raw. Servants!”
Adijan glanced down to see a brass pendant and chain around her neck. It was the one she’d brought back from the enchanter.
Imru nudged her in the back. “Come on, Adijan.”
“But my three obiks,” Adijan said.
The widow remembered the cloth in her hands. She tore it in two and dropped it on the carpet. “My husband paid a hundred times as much for that vile thing. Enjoy it.”
Three hundred obiks? Wow.
“You men there,” the widow called. “Get her out of my house.”
Adijan rose when the eunuch tugged at her shoulder. “Glorious madam, I don’t want the necklace. I want my three obiks. They took me many weeks of honest labor to earn. Imru, you know –”
“Not now,” lmru said.
“No!” Adijan tugged free of his grasp to turn back to the widow. “I worked hard for that money. I’m owed! I need it!”
Adijan was still protesting when the servants threw her out the back door. She landed heavily in the street, hurting her battered body anew.
“Turd.”
She eased to her feet. This couldn’t be happening.
She gritted her teeth and pounded on the back door. The servant who answered threatened to beat her black and blue if she didn’t go away, then slammed the door in her face.
“Eye? Why are you doing this to me?”
Adijan tried hard not to cry as she limped through over-grown courtyards, suspicious stares, and the mingled stink of urine and stale mistweed smoke in a narrow ally off the street before her aunt’s place. She found Dengan hunched in his dark, windowless business room amongst stacks of chests.
The hundreds of boxes – of all sizes, made from wood of every type, and bound with brass or iron – each fastened with a shiny padlock. The light from the single lamp glinted off the polished locks like the glowing eyes of watchful night creatures. Speculation about what the chests contained ranged from stolen enchanted gems to body parts, and every fantastical possibility in between. Adijan wouldn’t be surprised if every guess proved correct.
Camouflaged in the shadows and flickering light, mottle-faced Dengan peered at her with his unusually pale eyes. Rumor had Dengan the offspring of an albino and a rotted black corpse. Again, Adijan would have little trouble believing that for fact.
“Adijan hasss been fighting again.” Dengan’s sibilant lisp echoed back from the chests.
“Family trouble,” she said.
“Alwaysss the worssst. Not your delightful aunt?”
“No. Auntie is fine, thanks. Look, I need some money badly. This necklace is worth three hundred obiks. You can have it for thirty.”
Adijan lifted her hands to the chain.
“No need to take it off,” he said. “I’m not interesssted.”
“It came from Ul-Feyakeh. A rich man. An enchanter. Twenty-five.”
Dengan shook his head and smiled. “He wasss robbed. Or Adijan wasss.”
“Adijan definitely was. How about ten obiks? I can’t give it away for less. You’re lucky I’m desperate. Take a close look.”
“You could buy better for two curlsss from any half-honessst man in the bazaar. If you could find such a man.” He chuckled a wheezy laugh.
Adijan thanked him and left. Donkey dung. Somehow, she’d failed again. Her whole life had vanished before her eyes like a mirage. No wife. No money. No donkey. No home. Nothing. Perhaps Hadim was right about her. Perhaps Shali was better off with someone who didn’t fail at everything she tried.
Six doors short of her aunt’s house, she turned to step into the welcoming fumes of Abu’s wine shop. Having known her all her life and enjoying much custom from her aunt’s business, Abu let Adijan buy on credit. She took the jar and slumped on a stained mat in a corner where no one would see her crying.
Chapter Four
“Al-Asmai! Get up.”
Someone kicked the bottom of Adijan’s feet. The impacts triggered a nauseating banging inside her skull.
“Get up.” A bearded man in the brown uniform of the city guards stood over her. “You like it here so much you want to stay?”
Adijan moved cautiously, but not without pain, as she levered herself to her feet. She stood in a dingy room that stank of vomit and urine. Four reeking, recumbent heaps snored on the dirt floor. Her massively thumping hangover didn’t prevent her recognizing the city jail. The guard prodded her into a room where her Aunt Takush sat on the only stool. The gangly Fakir al-Wahali hovered protectively behind Takush. Adijan groaned.
“Fine’s paid,” the guard said. “She’s all yours, Miss al-Asmai.”
Takush smiled warmly at him. “Thank you so much.”
The guard blushed and saluted before leaving.
“Well, Nipper,” Fakir said. “This is a sad business. Only too happy to drop everything and escort your aunt here, of course. Couldn’t let a lady like her come to such a place on her own, eh?”
Adijan grunted and headed
for the door.
“Not that a fellow can’t understand,” Fakir said. As they walked out into the street, he strategically inserted himself between Adijan and her aunt. “Which of us doesn’t get a little liking for the wine now and then, eh?”
“It would be better,” Takush said, “if Adijan’s likings were littler and more ‘then’ rather than ‘now’.”
Fakir frowned as he struggled to understand that.
“Twenty curls,” Takush said to Adijan. “Not that I haven’t lost count of how much you’ve cost me in fines over the years.”
“Sorry, Auntie.”
“I wouldn’t be hard on the Nipper.” Fakir patted Adijan’s head. “It’s a rough business with her brother-in-law. I’m sure I’d have a drink or two if my wife were taken away. If I had a wife, of course. Which I don’t. Not yet.”
When they arrived back at the friendly house, Adijan made to trudge out to the storehouse, but Takush pointed to her chamber. Adijan slouched inside and slumped on a divan. Her head spun. It didn’t help that Fakir invited himself to join them.
“Getting arrested for shouting abuse and throwing dung at someone’s house isn’t going to help your case,” Takush said. “You can’t think Hadim won’t use it against you?”
“It could’ve been worse,” Fakir said. “She was drunk. Sodden. Oasis-headed.”
“That makes it better?” Takush asked.
“Stands to reason,” Fakir continued blithely. “She didn’t know what she was doing. If she did, she’d have made sure she was at the right house. If it’d been Hadim she plastered with dung, it might’ve been a bit sticky – if you know what I mean. But don’t you worry about this, Nipper. Nor you, dear lady. My friend’s friend’s cousin is a man of the world. Must be to be where he is, eh? You don’t get the caliph’s ear without knowing what’s what, do you? A little wine won’t make any difference.”
