One Thousand Nights (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms Book 6)

by Pope, Christine

  As that thought crossed my mind, I realized he had never invited me to call him by his name. I might be his wife, but apparently he intended to deny me even that intimacy.

  The tears threatened again, and I forced them away as I went to the window and gazed out at the gardens, the bright blooms seeming to wilt under the force of that alien sun. Oh, if only it wasn’t so horribly hot! It was not yet noon, and already my room felt stifling. The heat was a presence of its own, a weight that seemed to press against my head and chest. It felt as if I could not think clearly in those oppressive conditions. But there would be no relief, not for months and months, until the rains came in the winter.

  “Majesty,” said one of the Keshiaari girls, whose name I did not know, as she approached me where I stood at the window. She extended to me a silver goblet with garnets encrusted in the base.

  I gazed at it in wonder, for I could tell it must be cool; moisture gleamed along the engraved surface. Reaching out, I took the goblet from her, felt the welcome chill of it against my overheated flesh. I sipped, and realized it was only water, but water with real ice floating in it. How in the world could they manage such a thing, when all around was so terribly hot and dry?

  My puzzlement must have shown in my face, for she bowed and said, “Majesty, a day’s run from here is a high mountain, Mount Teldashir. Snow and ice linger there until midsummer. Runners fetch the ice and bring it here, packed in straw so it will not melt. His Most High Majesty feared you might be feeling the heat, and so he asked that this ice water be brought to you.”

  A warmth that had nothing to do with the heat of the day flooded through me. Surely if he were truly indifferent, he would not have thought of my discomfort and sought to provide some means to assuage it.

  I smiled at the girl and said, “Please send word that I am most grateful….” It seemed unkind of me not to ask her name, and so I said, “What do you call yourself?”

  Her dark eyes widened. It seemed clear enough that she hadn’t thought I would care about such a thing. “I am Lila, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you, Lila. Please make sure that His Most High Majesty knows how grateful I am for his thoughtfulness.”

  She bowed again, then backed away and went out into the sitting room. Of course she would not be the one to directly pass on that message — she would most likely give it to Miram, who would deliver it to whoever acted as seneschal here, and then that august personage would finally present it to the Hierarch.

  No. To Besh. I would call him that in my mind, even if he had not given me leave to do so in person.

  I hoped then that he would never learn of my tears on our wedding night. How foolish of me to jump to the worst possible conclusion, when it was far more reasonable to think that he had allowed me to sleep alone so I might grow accustomed to the notion of being his wife. After all, we would have many years to share together, and forcing everything on me in that one night would have been rather shortsighted.

  Then again, having seen him and conversed with him, felt his lips touch mine, I was not so averse to the idea of performing my wifely duties as I might have been even a day earlier. He could have had no way of knowing that, however. No, Besh would have only seen a woman in a new and foreign land, being asked to share the bed of someone who was next to a stranger to her. And because he was perceptive and intelligent, he had chosen to give me time to grow accustomed to the idea, so that we might come together in mutual desire one day in the future.

  It was with that pleasant thought in mind that I gazed out the window again, taking measured sips of the iced water so it might last long enough to provide relief for a goodly amount of time, but not so long that all the ice should melt before I was done. As I did so, I noticed a building on the far side of the complex, somewhat set away from the palace proper, with a great golden domed roof and no windows that I could see. Puzzled, I watched it for some time, noting that it seemed to be still and quiet, with no one coming and going from it.

  After finishing my water, I made my way to the sitting room, where Lila sat near one of the windows there and embroidered an intricate design of leaves and flowers onto a band of pale gold silk, using golden thread. I had no doubt the lovely piece would eventually make its way onto a new garment for me, for truly, what did all these attendants have to do with their time when they were not preparing me for a feast or some other public event? Again I wondered at having eight women assigned to me. Perhaps sometime in the future I could persuade Besh that I really did not need so many in my personal service.

  In the meantime, though, I knew I would have to endure their presence, unwelcome as it might be. Lila seemed like a sweet girl, and so I would not ask her to be reassigned, but the other two young women seemed to take their cues from Miram, and were wary and quiet. Even upon my brief acquaintance with them, I could not say I enjoyed having them around.

  Luckily, though, they were not in evidence at the moment, although I thought I caught the quiet murmur of their voices from the bath chamber, where perhaps they were cleaning. I approached Lila, and she started, then bolted to her feet. “Your Majesty,” she said at once.

  “Everything is fine, Lila,” I told her. “Your embroidery is very beautiful.”

  She bowed, stammering, “Th-thank you, Your Majesty.”

  “I was wondering, though — what is that domed building on the far side of the compound? It seems very grand, and yet I saw no one going in or out.”

  “Oh, that, Your Majesty, is His Most High Majesty’s observatory.”

  I did not understand the Keshiaari word, and so asked, “His what?”

  “His…place where he goes to look at the stars.” Her dark eyes were quiet, speculative, as if she were just realizing that my command of the language was not yet perfect. “With his…looking glass, I think you would call it, Your Majesty. A metal tube with pieces of glass. I do not know much more about it, I fear.”

  She looked a bit worried as she said that last, as if I would take her to task for her ignorance. Quite the opposite, for she had just provided me with a very valuable piece of information.

  At least I would have something to discuss with Besh at dinner that evening.

  * * *

  It was a much smaller affair than the grand feast of the night before, this meal held in a more intimate chamber with perhaps thirty of his most favored family members and subjects in attendance. I must confess that I could not keep track of all their names, especially with so many princes and princesses and not a single duke or baroness or earl, although I did at least recognize Azeer Tel-Karinoor, the visanis, or chancellor. But there was no mention of a mother, or siblings, during all those introductions, and I wondered if Besh lacked any immediate family. Surely if he had any, I would have met them the day before, when we were wed. How terrible for him to go through that great trial with his former wife with not even a brother or sister to provide support!

  He, however, gave no indication of being troubled by such a lack, and his expression was serene enough as I took my place next to him at the table. Here there was no dais, but the two of us still sat alone and separate at a long table while the other guests were seated at a series of low, round tables, men on one side of the room, women on the other. As before, they remained standing until Besh and I took our own chairs, but otherwise the feeling was far less formal. In one corner, a young man sat playing a stringed instrument I did not recognize, producing soft, delicate notes in a minor key.

  I waited until we had been served and the wine poured before saying in the Keshiaari tongue, “I saw your observatory today, my lord. It is just visible from my sitting room window.” As I spoke, I was careful with my pronunciation of the unfamiliar word, and I saw his amber eyes take on a surprised glint.

  “Yes, I suppose you would be able to see it,” he replied in the same language. “Are you interested in the stars, my lady?”

  “As to that, I have not had much opportunity, Your Majesty. Iselfex is situated on a river much given to
clouds and fog and mist, and so we do not have very many clear nights. But here I suppose it is a very different story.”

  “Very different,” he agreed. “To be sure, during the winter rains I find my viewing somewhat obstructed. But that is only for a few months, and the rest of the time I am able to continue with my observations.”

  “And what are these observations?” I inquired. It was not an idle question; I was fascinated that he should be so interested in the stars that he would have a special building constructed just so he could watch them. And although I did not know him well yet, I could tell this was one of his passions, something that occupied a good deal of his energy.

  “Oh, there are so very many that I cannot list them all now, but I track the positions of the stars, watch for their movements and conjunctions, and watch as well the moons in their orbits, and how they shift with the seasons.” As he spoke, his tone warmed, and lost something of its formal quality.

  Ah, here was where we could meet on common ground. For while I did not know much of the stars’ movements and such, I did know the legends associated with them in my homeland. “That all sounds so very interesting,” I said. “And the three stars that shine so brightly in the summer sky, and are now rising above the horizon? In Sirlende, we call them the Sisters, and speak of the legend where they were mortal girls once, of such great beauty that a long-ago Empress envied them, and had one of her magicians banish them to the heavens. But even in that she was defeated, as they continued to shine in the night sky, brighter and more beautiful than the most perfect diamonds.”

  Besh tilted his head to one side, regarding me with interest. I tried not to flush under that steady gaze, and told myself it was not precisely admiration, but rather a certain attentiveness, now that we were discussing something he clearly cared about. “I have heard something of that legend, and find it fascinating, for we call them the Sisters as well, although our story is that they were traveling to a shrine in the desert, and were overtaken by a great storm, one whose winds were so strong that the three girls were sent flying up into the heavens, where they remain to this day.”

  “It seems those poor sisters were not particularly lucky, no matter which legend you believe,” I remarked, and Besh gave me a rueful smile, saying,

  “Well, at least it is only a legend. Those are not the souls of lost women shining in the night sky.”

  “And what are they, then? Lights the gods — that God,” I added, correcting myself, for I did not wish him to think me disrespectful of his beliefs, “has hung in the sky?” That was what I had been taught, that all around us, on both the earth and in the heavens, had been wrought by the gods…or perhaps the God of Keshiaar. Truthfully, we in Sirlende were rather a secular sort, and while we paid lip service to the legends of the gods who had supposedly created everything around us, no one I knew was particularly devout. At any rate, in my mind, I’d always thought of stars as lanterns set very far away, which was why they looked so small.

  Shaking his head slightly, Besh sipped at his wine before he replied. Then he said, “I have no doubt that God created the stars, just as He created the world around us and the sun in the sky and the two moons that illuminate our night, but they are not lights in the way you might think of them, and instead are rather like our sun, being huge orbs of hot gas, but so far away that they appear as only pinpricks in the darkness.”

  My mind could barely process this notion, as both the concepts he was describing and the words he was using to explain them were quite unfamiliar to me. I hesitated, then asked, “And you know all this by looking at the stars from your observatory?”

  That question elicited a chuckle. I quite liked the sound of it, for his laugh was low and throaty. “Not all, my lady. My people have been studying the stars for a thousand years. But I will admit that in the last generation or so the tools to make those observations have been greatly improved.”

  “It all sounds quite marvelous,” I said honestly, for, as my brother liked to say, I had yet to meet a field of study that did not result in me burying my nose in a book until I felt I was sufficiently acquainted with a topic that I could converse on the subject without appearing ignorant.

  “I am glad you find it interesting. In fact,” Besh added, as he regarded me with a sharpened gaze, “perhaps you would like to see how some of it works firsthand? I could show you the observatory tonight, after we have finished our meal.”

  It was all I could do to prevent myself from clapping my hands together like a small child promised a particularly special treat. “That would be lovely, my lord. I think I would very much enjoy that.”

  He smiled and nodded, and we returned to our neglected food after that. It was much the same as the night before, only this time we had been provided with a sort of nutty-tasting flatbread with which to wrap up the highly seasoned meat. Although unfamiliar, it tasted very good, and I found myself eating with a light heart, glad that I had discovered a way to ingratiate myself with my new husband.

  Then I glanced up, and saw the chancellor, Azeer Tel-Karinoor, watching me with narrowed eyes and a pinched set to his already thin lips. As soon as he met my gaze, however, he glanced away. For a second or two I continued to regard him in puzzlement, wondering why he should have been wearing such a look of disapproval on his face. Had I committed some breach of protocol? I could not think of what it might be, as Besh and I had merely been conversing in quiet tones, our voices pitched low enough that I doubted we could have been overheard. And in that moment I told myself I must be imagining hostility where there was none, and to pay it no more mind.

  After all, I had far more pleasant things to occupy my thoughts, now that I had an assignation planned with my husband.

  * * *

  The observatory was, like all the buildings I had yet seen on the palace grounds, meticulously finished down to the smallest detail. Once again there were floors of patterned marble, this time in the shapes of stylized stars and moons and suns, and the walls were painted with frescoes that seemed to depict the various legends associated with the heavenly bodies. Oil lamps in brass sconces flickered along the walls. In the midst of all this were a great many complex instruments I could barely begin to describe, some with sheets of paper lying next to them covered in what looked like strings of numbers and symbols. The numbers at least I recognized, as Sirlende had adopted the far more convenient Keshiaari notations centuries before.

  Besh passed by all those instruments, however, going instead to what looked like a long tube of silvery metal, perhaps tin, sitting upon a great framework with cunning little wheels so that it might be moved about the chamber as needed. As with all things in Keshiaar, the tin tube was not left plain, but engraved with complex designs, and the fittings were of chased brass.

  “Is it a spy glass?” I asked somewhat hesitantly. I had seen Captain Talaver use such a thing on the ship, but this instrument was much larger, so large a single man could not have held it comfortably.

  “Similar in principle, but a telescope can see things that are much farther away. Come, and I will show you.”

  I approached the…telescope…and noted that it had a piece of glass set into the narrower end. “How does it work?”

  “Put your eye up to the glass. Here,” and he came behind me, took me by the arms, and guided me gently into position.

  His fingers felt very warm through the thin silk of my tunic. And oh, what a delicious sensation, to have him so close to me, his body almost touching mine as he made sure I was standing in the correct spot. I hardly dared to breathe, for I feared one accidental movement would have me brushing against him in a most intimate fashion, and that would cause him to startle and move away.

  “Very good,” he said, his voice sounding so close that it sent another shiver through me. “Now stay there while I extinguish the lights.”

  To my disappointment, he stepped away and made a circuit of the chamber, blowing out the oil lamps one by one. By then it was full dark, and so when the last
lamp was snuffed, the interior of the observatory became so black that I doubted I could see my hand in front of my face. I waited, and heard his footsteps returning to me.

  “Can you see in the dark, like a cat?” I inquired.

  Another of those delicious-sounding chuckles. “No, my lady. It is only that I have spent many a dark night in here, and I know the positions of the furniture and instruments so well that no doubt I could move amongst them blindfolded if necessary. But now, put your eye to the glass, and tell me what you see.”

  In silence I did as he bade me, leaning my head forward so my eyelashes almost brushed against the chased brass housing for the lens. I blinked, and suddenly I saw — a reddish-orange sphere, mottled here and there with lighter streaks of pale gold. And around the sphere I thought I could make out faint bands, or rings.

  “What is it?” I asked, my voice shaky. “Is it a star?”

  “No, Lyarris. It is a world like ours, but many thousands upon thousands of leagues away.”

  “‘A world like ours’?” I repeated, puzzled, although I was also thrilled to have heard him say my name. How lovely and exotic it sounded in that delicious accent of his. “How can there be more than one world?”

  “We believe there are many, although so far we have only charted six. That one is closest to us, and is called Balasir.”

  Mind churning with this new information, I stared through the glass eyepiece once more. The tiny sphere seemed to shimmer as I looked at it, but I guessed this had something to do with the glass through which I looked, and not the actual movement of that faraway world. Finally I asked, “Do people live there, too?”

  “That we do not know, my lady, but our thought is that they probably do not — or if they do, they must be very different from us. You can see from the color that there are no oceans on that world, no water at all. Nothing can survive without water.”

  No, I thought, for even here in dry, dusty Keshiaar there are rivers, and ice on the high mountaintops, and springs hidden in the depths of the desert. “It is still very beautiful, though,” I told him.