by Micah Yongo
“Who are you?”
“Me? No more than an onlooker. Curious, like you.”
“The men who brought me here were soldiers of the cityguard. You are of the royal house.”
“Am I? Well, if you say so. But then I am not the one sitting bound and masked. And I am not the mother to a young son who has come to a strange city to ask dangerous questions. And so, unlike you, who I am does not carry consequence… He is a handsome boy by the way, your son, I mean. Noah, isn’t it? Isn’t that his name?”
“You would harm a child?”
“Harm? Who spoke of harm? I merely make conversation and now you say such things. But then again, perhaps it is not so strange. It’s said the heart of the guilty can weigh heavily; it can make one given to skittishness. Perhaps this is what ails you – guilt. But fear not. Confession is good for the soul. You ought to think of me as your remedy.”
“Remedy? Confession? I am–”
Yasmin felt the fist strike her jaw and ear hard. The left side of her face exploded with numbness, then pain, her left ear ringing.
“Now that was rude, wasn’t it? A little out of turn, speaking to me that way. Raised voice and so forth. You’re a guest here, after all. I understand you are distressed but it doesn’t do to insult your host now, does it?”
Yasmin almost choked on the shock. She could feel the pain blossoming across her face. “A guest? Your men dragged me here. I am a prisoner.”
This time she was struck in the mouth. The blow hammered square on her lips and just below her nose. She could feel her face beginning to bruise and blood leaking along the inside of her lips and gums. Her tongue stung.
“And now you insult my hospitality too. I expected better than this. I hope you’re not teaching such poor manners to your dear son.”
Yasmin couldn’t spit out the blood with the sack still over her head and so she swallowed it instead, coppery and sour, gulping it down along with the sob that had begun to swell in her throat. She coughed. Breathed deep. Her voice a croak. “What do you want?”
“Ah, now that is a little better. I’d have thought it impolite to ask but now you mention it there is something you could help me with. This Governor Zaqeem, you see, the one you are asking everyone of. What happened to him, it was a very tragic thing. You were his sister, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good, good, then you will appreciate better than most the anguish caused by the misfortune of his passing. When a loved one dies it is never an easy thing. More so when that death is premature. It compels feelings of… frustration, anger, confusion. It can all seem such a waste, yes? Especially when the departed is a soul so… noble as Zaqeem’s was. It is only natural for his dearest to have questions. After all, what salve can ever better that of understanding? What other balm for suffering is there save an answer to that everlasting question – why? Far be it from me to deny the gropings of grief, I count it her unenviable prerogative to seek what comfort she can. Nonetheless… sometimes her hungry claws can grope too far, trample the healing wounds of others. Governor Zaqeem was an esteemed and well-loved man as you will know. The bringing up of these questions, well… it is unseemly, and for many, very painful. Sometimes it is the call of kindness and consideration that asks us to stay our impulses, however natural they may seem.”
“You want me to stop asking questions.”
“Ah, you see. I could tell you were of a generous spirit, Yasmin. Very generous. It will be my hope that your son lives long, free from harm, to learn the generosity of his mother. It would be a shame for such traits to perish in the one who has them, before she has had chance to confer them on her offspring… it would be a tragedy not unlike the one that befell good Zaqeem, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I understand.”
“Good. Good. I am happy. Is it not a wholesome thing when parties can come to agreement? Perhaps as a show of goodwill you will make your departure from the city by week’s end. It is not that you’re unwelcome, of course. It’s just there are some for whom being reminded of these things has been too much to bear. I fear your continuing presence here would make them… uneasy.”
“I will leave.”
“Good. Very good.” Yasmin flinched when she heard the man rise from his seat. “In that case I shall bid you farewell. And hope the next time we meet that we can do so in less discomforting circumstances.”
Yasmin listened as he walked across the room and slowly past her toward the exit before stopping to mutter with another standing there. The man then walked up the steps from where he’d entered and through what sounded like a shackled door at the top.
They dumped her an hour later, sack on head, tossing her blindly to the hard soaked grit of a rain-drenched road. She pulled away the dull abrasive cloth, roughly puffing its hairs and threads from her nostrils and brushing them from her head to find she was in the straight street again, yards from Rona’s inn, alone. No Mulaam. She climbed to her feet. There were few in the road: an old woman, with a black scarf wrapped tight to her small frail skull and blacker eyes, stared silently as Yasmin wandered through the waning late afternoon sun. Perched on the step of her house’s doorway, she squinted at Yasmin as she passed, her mealy wrinkled jaw chewing. They’d dumped her here deliberately, Yasmin knew, to show how long they’d been watching her, to show they knew of her visit to Rona. Yasmin tried not to think of what might have become of her. Or might she have been the one who told them of her inquiries in the first place?
She walked through the city back to Yaram’s house, hoping to find Mulaam there.
When she came in she found the old man sitting with Noah, stooped over a scroll with a finger poised, pointing at the page. What was the child doing here? When had he arrived? Noah turned and stood when he saw her. The boy smiled only briefly, and then his face slackened, his eyes darting fearfully back to Yaram. Yasmin felt the swelling along her jaw and was trying to imagine how she looked and how long Noah had been here when Hassan came in from the kitchen.
She saw the colour drain from her husband’s face as he looked her over; her rumpled shift and cloak, dirtied elbows, sweaty brow, bloodied lip, bruised and swollen mouth. “Gods… who did this to you?”
“You’re here,” Yasmin said, wonderingly.
“When I realized you had left Dumea, and that you had taken Mulaam with you…” He looked about her, in search of the servant. “Who did this to you, Yasmin?”
Yasmin saw the tears welling in her husband’s eyes and choked up the sob she’d swallowed. Her shoulders heaved and shivered as he came across the room and held her. “We must…” she whispered as he squeezed her to him. “We must leave the city at once.”
“Leave? No. Whoever has done this will pay and–”
“Hassan,” Yaram said. Hassan turned to look at him. “You must listen to your wife. You must do what she asks. And you must do it quickly.”
Forty
T I D I N G S
“You shouldn’t have spoken with her.”
“I wanted to.”
“This is not about what you want.”
“No, Gahíd. It’s about your failure to learn she was coming here.”
“You should’ve left it to me. You’re exposed now.”
“Exposed?”
“She will know your voice, Játhon.”
“So? When shall she again hear it? Even if she did, of what use would it be to her?”
“She’d know you were her interrogator.”
“Good. Then my speech would be a reminder to her of our agreement and her need to keep it.”
“You’ve no idea, have you?”
“Gahíd,” Elias interrupted. “Let Játhon alone. What’s done is done. And he’s right; that he spoke with Hassan’s wife is of no consequence. They will not meet again, and it wouldn’t matter if they did. My concern is why Hassan is in the city, and why he’s yet to leave.”
“They will depart today by noon,” Gahíd said.
“You are certain,” Elias
said.
“I am.”
“As certain as he was Hassan would not come here in the first place, no doubt,” Játhon said. “Or that Tobiath would not be the threat he nearly became.”
“Játhon!”
Játhon looked back to Elias and gestured apology. Unconvincingly.
Elias let out a long, tired breath through his nostrils then turned again to Gahíd. “You have been careless though, General.”
“This says the man who, for how many weeks, daily set eyes on the woman the Brotherhood hunts and was none the wiser.”
“Was it only I? Was not your own kind – the sharíf’s bodyguard – deceived by her?”
“Only those belonging to her sharím could have known her face.”
“Then what hope had I? The girl is cunning. She knew these things and used them well. That is all.”
“But it’s not all, is it?” Játhon cut in, turning again to Gahíd. “It was you, Gahíd, who promised they could be contained. Had we known this long would pass without their being caught we’d never have chosen this course.”
“Is that so? And what course would you have chosen instead? What wonderful plan did the two of you put aside in order to come to me, begging for my help?”
“This bickering is getting us nowhere,” Elias said. “The sharíf will be here soon. We need to think now. Where they are, where they will go.”
“That’s just it,” Gahíd said. “We don’t. The heretics do not matter now.”
“They can hurt us, Gahíd.”
“How?”
“Why do you suppose she saw fit to pose as a slave, make herself a companion to the sharíf? What does she seek?”
“Now that,” Chalise said loudly as she strode through the chamber’s doors from across the other end of the broad throne room, “is precisely the question I’ve been asking myself the last few days.”
The three men at the table froze. A courtier followed the sharífa in.
“You’ve not been waiting long, I hope,” she said.
The men stood belatedly to their feet and bowed as the sharífa climbed the steps to the large bronze and ivory throne. She sat, settling her arms along the thick bone-carved rests, and looked down on them at the table. “Well?”
“No, my queen,” Elias said. “We have not been waiting long. It is good to see you are well after the way the wedding was interrupted. What happened in Qadesh…”
“Need not be spoken of again here,” Chalise said. “My son, as you will understand, has been somewhat distressed by the events. He’d grown to trust the girl. He has asked me to attend to the court in his stead, until he is well enough to resume.”
“Of course, Sharífa.”
“So. Why am I here? Phanuel here,” Chalise turned her hand, gesturing to the courtier standing in the doorway, “said the matter was urgent.”
“And it is, my queen,” Elias said. “Phanuel. Bring in the general’s men.”
The courtier hurried out past the doorkeeper and then returned several moments later, leading Josef and Daneel into the throne room behind him. This time the doorkeeper reached out a long dark arm and stepped out, pulling the door shut behind him.
Chalise watched the two young men in as they came to stand before her. They faced the throne and then bowed – the one on the right doing so from the waist, the other from the neck only, and without dropping his gaze. Which Chalise didn’t like. She glanced to Gahíd sitting at the counsellors’ table behind them. The elder looked away.
“You’ve the look of field rats,” she said to the pair.
The one on the right answered. “We rode without stop or rest from Geled, my queen. We’ve been near to twenty days and nights in open country.”
Chalise cocked an eyebrow and looked at Phanuel. Phanuel bowed. “They refused to bathe or change their clothes until they had seen you, Sharífa.”
Chalise sighed and nodded at them. “What is your name?” she said to the one who’d spoken.
“I am Josef, my queen.”
“And you?” Chalise asked the other one. Their likenesses were uncannily similar. Brothers perhaps. Likely twins.
“My name is Daneel,” he said. His brother beside him cleared his throat. “My queen,” Daneel added.
Elias saw Chalise’s jaw clench. “Tell the sharífa why you are here.”
“Yes,” Chalise said. “Do. Geled is a long way. What news do you bring from that good city?”
The one on the right, Josef, seemed about to answer, but hesitated. The room waited. In the end it was Daneel who spoke.
“Geled is no good city anymore,” he said. “In fact, it’s no city at all… my queen.”
Chalise looked at him.
“The city is gone, Sharífa,” Josef explained. “Destroyed.”
“What do you mean, destroyed?”
“No less than what we’ve said. The walls are broken, its citadel in ruin, the buildings no more than rubble.”
Chalise looked at them as though they’d just spat on her robes. She glanced at the others sitting at the counsellors’ table. Their looks were sombre. Silent. She looked back to the messengers.
“You saw this yourself?”
“We stood as close to its ruins as we now do to you. We and the others with us, Jasinda and Salidor.”
“And where are they?”
“Jasinda rides to Parses to warn the citadel. Salidor stayed to search the ruins and see what might be learned of those who destroyed it.”
Chalise stood. She came slowly down the steps of the throne, her eyes fixed on the messengers. “You are of the Shedaím, yes?”
“Yes, my queen,” Josef answered. “We are.”
“I seldom see your kind so young. Those of you who come here do so as my bodyguard. They’re usually older.” She stood there a moment just looking at them, and then passed by them to the counsellors’ table. “Perhaps their youth swells their accounting of what they saw. Surely these tidings cannot be true?”
“They are the first to bring them,” Gahíd said. “But they are true.”
“How could there be no other word of this?”
“Geled is an outpost, only a few miles from the Reach. There are few villages close by. If there were no survivors, it would be possible to raid it without word reaching us.”
“The general is right,” Játhon added. “Before winter they receive barley and wheat from Çyriath. Farmers and merchants would be the only other way for word to be brought. There are few reasons for men to travel that way otherwise.”
Chalise turned from the table and began to slowly pace the chamber. “Then the Kivites have gone too far this time. I want you to send men there, Gahíd. Destroy them, every man and boychild. I don’t care how long it takes. Let them wither like a weed in the cold with none to carry on their lines. I will convene the council. Not even Fatya can deny–”
“Sharífa.”
Chalise turned to find Daneel addressing her. The boy bowed his head when he saw he had her attention, lowering his gaze this time.
“The city we saw was razed to the ground,” he said. “It was nothing. No more than piles of stone and ash. Had I not seen it myself I’d think it the work of Kivites too. They are the only people nearby. But they are no more than scattered tribes. Raiders and bandits. What we witnessed was carnage. The work of an army. A powerful army.”
“The boy is right,” Gahíd said, before Chalise could answer. “The Kivites have done no more than rob. They overturn homesteads. They raid villages. They have never been able to do what has been done to this city. Josef and Daneel say the walls were broken, Sharífa. The citadel was destroyed.”
“Then you say we are invaded?”
“Until we can know more, there is no other way to name it, my queen.”
“By who? Súnam would scarcely dare it, and they are too far south to have marched an army all the way to Geled unseen.”
“I agree, Sharífa. Perhaps when Salidor returns we will be better able to judge who this ene
my is. Until then we must prepare, send word west and north. We will need Aryith to march on Parses to strengthen them, and Tirash will need to be fortified. Whatever army did this won’t have come south of the Black Mountains yet.”
“Then do it. Elias, I want you to convene the council.”
“Of course, Sharífa.”
“Phanuel, Játhon, you will come with me. I want word sent south to Qalqaliman and Hikramesh too. We may need them should this army prove larger than we’d like.” Chalise strode quickly toward the door, the courtier hurrying behind and Játhon rising to follow, and then she stopped. She turned back and pointed at Josef and Daneel. “And someone get these two cleaned up.”
The three of them departed, leaving Elias, Gahíd and the twins in the room.
Gahíd waited until the doorkeeper had closed the doors again and then beckoned to Josef and Daneel.
Elias leaned over toward the elder as the Brothers wandered across. “What are you doing, General?”
“You said it yourself, the Dumean is dangerous, and we have learned he consorts with Súnam. We lingered too long with both Zaqeem and Tobiath before doing what needed to be done. We should not make the same mistake a third time. If we are to be at war, we will no longer have the luxury of patience.”
Elias hitched an eyebrow, and then nodded agreement.
Josef and Daneel came and stood before them.
“I hope your journey has not left you too weary,” Gahíd said.
“It hasn’t,” Josef said.
“Very good… Do you remember the decree you were given at the first?”
“Yes, Elder Gahíd.”
“Well. It so happens the steward of Dumea is in this city. He is to leave shortly, by noon. And so you see then how fortune smiles on us, bringing you here now, just as it is time for that decree to be fulfilled. So…” Gahid gestured to the chamberlain sitting next to him. “Elias here is going to show you where the man and those with him abide. But I want you to wait until he has left the city. You’ve had no time to watch him here. He will go west by the desert road to make his way back to Dumea. Few travel that way. He will be alone. It will be simpler. Follow him. Do what was to be done from the beginning. Leave none who may be with him alive. And then you will return here, to rest.”
