“I assure you, Lady, I am no priest.”
Her face darkened toward anger, fearing he was playing her for a fool, and he motioned toward one of the other chairs in an echo of her own gesture.
“Sit.”
If she took issue with his command, curiosity kept her from protesting. She sat primly, knees together and hands folded. Salim removed his leg from the chair arm and turned toward her.
“Khoyar told you that I serve Pharasma, and that’s true. But I am not a priest, nor a member of the church. Rather, I exist both within and without it—I serve the dark goddess, but bow to none of the carrion crows who worship her.”
Neila studied him cautiously. “So you’re a paladin, then? A holy warrior?”
Salim laughed again.
“Don’t confuse fidelity with piety, Lady. There’s little love lost between me and the goddess. Suffice it to say that she finds me useful. And I obey.” The last word came out with more bite than he would normally have allowed, and Neila leaned away slightly, continuing to stare at him.
“I see,” she said, slowly. “Well, Mr. Ghadafar, it seems that I may have made a number of assumptions.” She gestured to the table. “If you would care to stay here for the duration of your investigations, you are welcome. I’ll have a servant make up a room for you.”
“My thanks, Lady.” The response was automatic, but as he spoke, Salim suddenly felt—not ashamed, exactly, but disconcerted. This girl was so composed, so commanding in her presence and speech, that it instantly kindled his revulsion for the church and all the other bureaucrats and petty dictators that operated with a similar arrogance. Yet his anger was with Khoyar, and Ceyanan, and the grave-loving bitch-goddess herself. Not this hard-eyed young woman who was doing everything in her power to track down her father’s killer.
Including dealing with an uncouth swordsman and the mountain-sized chip on his shoulder. Salim stuck out a hand.
“Salim,” he said.
The noblewoman stared at it. He left it out, watching as understanding dawned. She took it and shook.
“Neila,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”
Chapter Three
The Jackal's Den
Salim awoke early the next morning, just as the sun was beginning to peer over the horizon, painting the walls of the bedchamber a brilliant orange. Rolling fully clothed off the bed—as he’d suspected, the blankets had been completely unnecessary—he ran rough fingers through his shaggy hair and adjusted the hilt of his sword, then opened the door and slipped out into the hall.
Downstairs, the manor was already humming with activity. Pots and platters rattled in the kitchen as the servants prepared breakfast for their lady (who no doubt wouldn’t wake for several hours yet—the privilege of nobility). Through open windows came the distant sounds of men singing in the fields, their low voices a chanted counterpoint to the washerwomen’s wailing songs of the previous evening.
Salim passed through the kitchen where the fat cook and her apprentices were doing their best to carefully time the food’s readiness with their mistress’s unpredictable waking. They jumped when he entered, but he put a finger to his lips and grabbed two fresh circles of flatbread from a tray, secreting them in a pocket along with a handful of dates. The fat cook scowled at him as if she would have liked to say something, but didn’t dare call a guest to task. Salim winked at her and passed through the door that led out into the yard.
Outside, the day was coming alive. Insects buzzed in a rasping chorus that filled the rolling green grounds between the house and the river. With the sun just up, the day was still pleasantly cool, and the entire world smelled of growth and life.
Salim looked up at the windows of the second story, noting the tall one which was Faldus’s study. Only a northerner could sleep through the morning. In a desert nation like Thuvia, as in Rahadoum and Osirion, it was often said that life took place at dawn and dusk. It was true in several senses—literally, the boiling heat of the day made work in the full sun oppressively hard, if not outright dangerous. In the more metaphorical sense, that threefold division represented the majority of life, the hard work of adulthood separating the unfettered games of childhood and the deserved rest of old age.
One of the footmen approached him. It was the man who had driven the carriage the day before—Olar, his name had been.
“Good morning, honored master,” the servant called, formal but friendly. Salim returned the greeting.
“The mistress has placed the carriage at your disposal. Shall I bring it around and meet you in the drive?”
Salim shook his head. That carriage would stand out anywhere he went in Lamasara, and while he didn’t expect to take either Qali or Jbade by surprise, there was no reason to show up announcing his affiliations.
“Do you have anything a little less conspicuous?”
The driver looked thoughtful, then shrugged.
“There’s a farm wagon almost finished being loaded for town. It can be ready in a few minutes.”
“Perfect,” Salim said. “Do you know where I can find the estates of either Akhom Qali or Lady Jbade?”
The man first looked startled, then gave Salim a predatory smile.
“I do indeed. I can take you there in the wagon—both live near the marketplace, and Qali is between us and it.” He lowered his voice. “You think they were behind the master’s death?”
“I think they had a motive,” Salim said, his voice reproachful. “But that proves nothing. It would be best not to make conjectures, or to speak about the matter at all.”
“Of course, of course.” But the grim smile remained. Faldus must have been a good man to work for, Salim reflected.
A few minutes later, the wagon was finished being loaded with sacks of grain and corn, plus a small mound of melons. Salim sat up front on the high driver’s seat next to Olar, who held the reins. Instead of the carriage’s white horses, a larger and more practical team of yoked oxen pulled the broad-wheeled cart. Olar flicked them each lightly with the whip, and the great moon-eyed beasts lumbered forward without complaint, pulling the cart down a dusty set of ruts that paralleled the manor’s white stone drive until it reached the road.
On the outskirts of Lamasara, where they currently were, the residences grew steadily thinner and more spread out as they radiated away from the city proper—with one exception. Along the riverbanks, where annual flooding kept the soil rich and abundant water allowed canals and easy hand irrigation with the cranelike mechanisms called shadufs, wealthy farmers and nobles vied for space, creating lucrative plantations and estates. Anvanory Manor was toward the southernmost end of that long line of greenery stretching out from the city.
Olar was quiet as he drove, taking the eminently practical approach of the longtime servant who has learned that it’s best not to address one’s employer unless directly engaged in conversation. Normally that would have suited Salim fine, as he was going to need all his wits about him in the coming engagements. Yet he also had no interest in going into them at a disadvantage. Neila had given him a brief overview of both aristocrats before he’d retired for the night, but servants talked, even between households, and serving men and women regularly knew more than their masters presumed.
“Tell me what you know about Akhom Qali and Lady Jbade,” Salim said.
Olar nodded as if he’d been expecting the question. “About Qali, I know only as much as everyone else,” he said. “An Osirian come to Lamasara several years ago to better monitor his caravans. A brilliant man, it’s said, but not someone you want to cross. More than that, I cannot say.”
“And Jbade?”
Olar grinned.
“Every man in Lamasara knows the Queen of Spice. Some might try to deny it, but only in their wives’ hearing. Among other men, they say that a pretty girl puts an ache in your heart, but Lady Jbade strikes lower. I saw her dance once as a boy, when I snuck away from the market with my father’s purse.” He sighed. “I learned more watching her on sta
ge than I have in twenty years of marriage.”
Salim did the math. “She must be retired by now.”
Olar shook his head. “Not at all. Or rather, yes but no.” He raised a finger toward his ear. “They say her mother was the most beautiful elf in Kyonin, overcome with lust for a simple herdsman as her retinue passed through Qadira. The result was Jbade. When she was in her prime, her dancing would make a Calistrian temple-whore blush. Half the nobles in Lamasara have attempted to claim her, but she owns the most popular theaters in the city, as well as the best brothels. If she dances anymore, it’s not because she has to. Nor for us to see.”
Olar drifted off, likely thinking of his formative encounter with the woman Faldus had called the Harlot. Salim let him. They rode on in silence for a while longer. When the farm manors began to be absorbed and replaced by the more urban establishments signifying the beginning of Lamasara’s recognized districts, Olar stopped the cart.
“Akhom Qali’s dwelling is two streets down,” he said, nodding toward the stretch of city between them and the river. “Lady Jbade resides in the theater district, just up the hill from a place called the Firelark. Anyone in that area should be able to direct you to it. Shall I wait for you in the market?”
Salim thought about it. They’d come a fair distance in the cart—not unwalkable, but also not a trip he’d relish making in the full heat of the sun.
“If it’s not going to inconvenience the manor,” he said. After a second, he added, “Or you.”
The driver smiled again.
“No worries, Excellency. They’ll be fine without me for a few hours, and I’m sure I can find ways to entertain myself in the market.”
After his story about Jbade, Salim reckoned the man could. At Salim’s nod, Olar slapped the reins and rolled onward down the road. Salim watched him go, then turned and made his way through the warren of mud brick buildings in the direction the driver had indicated. He had time to wonder momentarily if he should have asked for a description of Akhom’s property, and then he emerged from an alley onto a wide street, where the point was rendered moot.
There could be no mistaking Akhom Qali’s estate. Long, brown walls six feet high extended the length of a city block, topped with shocking greenery that hung out over the street as if trying to escape. A gate of iron bars stood in the wall directly across from Salim, and beyond it he could see the shining gold-painted roof of a house rising above the trees, capped by a dome fit for a capital building.
Salim shook his head wonderingly and crossed the street toward the gate. The amazing excesses of these moneyed nobles, to waste gallons of precious water on ornamental greenery when the rest of their countrymen dug mud from wells in the sand, and nations like Rahadoum struggled to keep from being totally subsumed by the desert.
Behind the gate sat a guard, using a waist-high clay pillar as a stool. He straightened and half-bowed politely as Salim approached.
“I wish to speak to Akhom Qali,” Salim said, attempting to put a little aristocratic expectation in his own voice.
“Of course,” the guard said. From his tone, it was clear that the statement meant only of course you do, not any indication that he intended to open the gate. The guard wore a white turban, and his flowing robes couldn’t hide a frame that was at least half again as large as Salim’s. “And whom may I tell the master is calling?”
Salim had already evaluated several possible answers on the ride into town. “Tell him an emissary from High Priest Khoyar Roshan of the Church of Pharasma is here to see him.”
“Certainly.” The guard snapped his fingers, and a boy of perhaps twelve that Salim had completely failed to notice emerged from the screen of trees. Another twitch of the guard’s wrist sent the youth sprinting up the path to the house. The guard made no motion toward small talk while they waited, and Salim was content with silence. After a short time, the child returned, out of breath but holding up two fingers as he ran. The guard noted the gesture and unlocked the gate.
“Master Qali will see you,” he said. “Please follow the boy.” Salim did as he was instructed, and the wrought-iron bars closed behind him with a clang.
The garden path twisted between tight-packed trees to hide its destination from the gate. Within twenty steps, the guard and the street were invisible, lost in the tunnel of vegetation. The stones of the path were smooth and gray, so perfectly laid and fitted that it was as if Salim were walking across a tile floor, despite the fact that no two stones were the same size or shape. After several more serpentine turns the trees gave way to a flagstone porch that was almost a plaza. The sprawling house that stood beyond it was long and low, and above the center grew the great minaret he’d seen from the street, its faintly lined sides not just painted but gleaming with the luster of bright bronze—perhaps even gold plating. Below it, two steps led up from the plaza to wide wooden doors built in the breezy Thuvian style and covered by curtains. The doors hung open invitingly.
The child led him up the steps and into a room furnished in smooth stone and painted in cool, soothing shades of green. A servant in a formal suit approaching livery stood waiting just beyond the lintel, hands clasped in front of him. He said nothing as the child deposited Salim and then disappeared back into the bushes.
There was no preamble. “This way,” the chamberlain said, and led him down a long hallway, their footsteps echoing against the stones. Bright windows lit the passageway at intervals, and brought with them a cool breeze that seemed to follow the men down the hall. At last they came to another set of the big double doors, and the servant stood next to them at attention, silently indicating that Salim should enter.
Salim had expected a study or sitting room, perhaps a dining chamber. Even a great hall or throne room, if Akhom Qali was the arrogant sort.
What he hadn’t expected was another garden. Beyond the doors, several steps descended into a square, recessed courtyard that was half patio and half jungle. Trees and bushes, both potted and growing out of recessed ports in the flagstones, were everywhere, turning the stone of the courtyard into innumerable little whirling paths. Roofs to all four sides made it clear that they were not merely in a walled garden, but rather somewhere in the middle of Qali’s grand house itself. Above, a square swatch of sky was blue and completely unobstructed, even the great dome rendered invisible by the recessed well of the courtyard.
“Don’t just stand there. Come, come!”
Akhom Qali was a short man, almost as round as he was tall, yet his fat was the sort that seems to shine with health, like a plump baby. His hair was white, and a full beard extended halfway down his pudgy chest, matching his loose white blouse and pants embroidered heavily with crimson. He half-reclined in an iron-and-fabric chair in the center of the cortile. A second chair sat opposite him. He motioned toward it.
Salim picked his way down the stairs and through the maze of plants until he reached Qali’s patio. The merchant gestured again, and Salim sat.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” The wave of Qali’s bearded chin indicated the whole of the enclosed garden, and perhaps the rest of the manor.
“Extremely,” Salim replied honestly.
“It’s nothing to match the pleasure domes under Ulunat, the great beetle of Sothis, but I do what I can.”
Salim nodded. He’d known neither of Faldus’s competitors would be local, as the Thuvian government flatly refused to sell the immortality elixir to anyone living permanently within its borders. So Akhom was an Osirian, one of the decadent easterners who’d built the great pyramids and then done little since, save slowly sell off their heritage to foreign exporters and treasure hunters. It was a shameful strategy, but if Akhom’s accommodations were any indication, it was also quite lucrative.
“You hail from Sothis originally, then?” he asked politely.
“Of course. As you do from Rahadoum.”
Salim startled, and was unable to keep it off his face. Akhom’s eyes twinkled.
“Your accent,” the merchan
t said, conversationally. He gave a wide grin, full of humor. “I’d guess somewhere near Manaket originally, but you spent significant time in Azir. Am I close?”
Too close. “My mother was from Manaket. Your ear for dialects is astonishing.”
“Not nearly so astonishing as finding one of the Godless wearing Pharasmin black,” Akhom countered. “Tell me, how does a citizen of the only atheist nation on an otherwise gods-fearing globe come to be delivering messages for the church of Pharasma in Lamasara?”
Salim realized he had stopped breathing and struggled to consciously relax his muscles. Akhom was good—very good. Either he’d been briefed ahead of time, or he had a remarkable capacity for deduction. Possibly both. Whatever the case, there was no question that Salim was at a significant disadvantage, and Akhom had just made it clear that he knew it. Thirty seconds in the garden, and Salim was already on the defensive. Not a good sign. Salim took a breath and started over.
“That’s a long story,” he demurred, “and not nearly so interesting as you might suspect. Perhaps we should begin at the beginning. My name is Salim Ghadafar. Though I am here on behalf of the Church of Pharasma, I am neither a priest nor one of the devout, merely working in conjunction with them.”
At this point, there was no harm in admitting any of that. The more he thought about it, the safer it seemed to presume that Akhom had been informed of at least the basics. As such, he might as well state them himself. Akhom had successfully put Salim off his game, and this bit of explanation was an acknowledgment of the point—a professional courtesy. Akhom’s nod of recognition as Salim spoke confirmed his suspicions.
“I am Akhom Qali,” the bearded man replied, “and I am a commodities trader operating all across the northern coast of Garund, from my home in Sothis all the way to yours—and here again I make my impolite assumptions—in the Kingdom of Man, running caravans along the Path of Salt. For the last several years I have resided here in Lamasara, waiting for the right time to bid on the sun orchid elixir.” He picked up a teacup which had been sitting next to the leg of the chair and saluted Salim with it. “Which of course you already know. Tea?”
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