by Somaiya Daud
“Maram,” he said, grinning, one hand still on one of his cousin’s arms, “may I introduce the scions of the Mas’udi and Nasiri tribes. Khulood has been head of the Nasiri tribe for a year now. ‘Imad and I’timad are twins and ascended two months ago.”
Khulood was a slender woman a few years older than me, of a height with me, with dark hair threaded with gold. When she moved her head just so and the light struck it, I could see undertones of red. Her eyes were wide and dark, but there was a shrewdness to her expression that belied my instinct to mark her as innocent as the eyes would suggest. The twins, ‘Imad and I’timad, were almost mirror images of each other. Brown skin darkened by many hours spent in the sun and curling brown hair that stopped just beneath ‘Imad’s ears, and tumbled, untamed, down I’timad’s back.
I frowned as my eyes fixed on the youngest of them, a boy. He had the same coloring as Khulood, though his hair was heavy and thick. “I know you,” I said. “We’ve met.” He’d been among the makhzen attendants in the Ziyaana.
He grinned and bowed. “Tariq bin Nasir, Your Highness. I yet reside in the Ziyaana.”
“Though we hope,” Khulood said softly, “that the king will be kind and allow him to return to us.”
That, I thought, was unlikely. Mathis kept the makhzen in check by keeping their children. And no matter the length of the occupation, he trusted none of them regardless of their apparent docility.
“How are you finding M’Gaadir?” I asked.
I’timad grinned. “It is much as we remember it.” Her brother elbowed her in the side, and she sobered. “It is a beautiful estate, Your Highness.”
I allowed a little of my amusement to seep into my voice. “Thank you, I’timad. It was designed with care.”
After we were finished with introductions, everyone settled into a spot in the orchard. Khulood and her brother Tariq found a friend who had arrived earlier, while the Mas’udi twins joined us in the bower to show Idris holovids of the horses they’d brought.
As if summoned by talk of horses, ‘Adil, Idris’s much younger cousin, came barreling through the courtyard with a shout. He was covered in hay, and his fine clothes were dirty. I did not need the disapproving eye of his minder to know he’d been in the stables, and without permission. Still, I thought with a smile, it seemed not even her aggravation could overshadow his glee. He was nine or ten, caught in that awkward stage of growth where he was both gangly and small. His family had arrived even before Idris and me, part of the Salihi contingent straight from Al Hoceima.
He climbed onto the seat beside Idris and pressed close to get a better look at the horses on the holo they were watching. A less kind cousin might have wrinkled his nose or demand he wash, but Idris lifted his arm and drew him close, then angled the holo to make sure he could see. Idris hadn’t raised him, but it was easy to see how he would have looked after him at home. He had no fear that the prince of Andalaa would turn him away or scold him. ‘Adil talked quite quickly, and more than once I heard his voice flow from Vathekaar into Kushaila. He spoke too quickly for any of the others to follow what he said, but I understood and was hard put not to smile or laugh at his excitement. More than once he looked over Idris’s arm at me, his eyes shrewd but joyful still.
Eventually, I tired of feigning interest in horses and wandered off to one of the large glassless windows that overlooked the orchard. Though I might have been a farm girl, we’d never had enough money to afford horses, and those who did used them as beasts of burden, not for racing as the makhzen did. Husnain, I thought with a pang, would have enjoyed the conversation.
“Your Highness?”
I’timad had come away from her brother and Idris to join me. She was dressed in a dove-gray qaftan that crept toward silver. There was something almost military about the high collar of her qaftan and the mantle falling from her shoulders. But the effect was wholly Kushaila—there was nothing Vathek about her, which was perhaps why she and her brother had been chosen as hostages.
“Did we bore you?” she said, and gave me a bright smile. I couldn’t tell if it was sincere.
“I find myself less riveted by horseflesh than my husband,” I replied, softening Maram’s customary tart tone.
She joined me at the window and eyed me sidelong for a moment. “You know, you are not what I expected.”
Maram had never met I’timad, I knew; though she and ‘Imad had been raised in the Ziyaana, Maram had not returned until she was older, and by then they would have traveled back and forth between their stronghold and the capital. Maram had always kept her circle small, and there were enough young Vathek courtiers that she would not have consorted with many of the makhzen families outside of Idris.
I raised an eyebrow. “What did you picture?”
She grinned. “I don’t know. For you to look less like one of us?”
My eyes widened in surprise. I hadn’t expected that much honesty from her.
“Have I given offense?”
I didn’t know. Maram’s resemblance to her mother, to the Kushaila, was a sore topic. I didn’t know if she would be offended, if she would lash out. I didn’t want to presume. And it felt almost like a crime to pretend to understand the strange, violent line she straddled between her mother’s people and her father’s.
“I—I’m surprised,” I managed at last. “No one talks about it.”
“You will find I am not one who cares for the rules of polite conversation.”
“That must have served you very well in your time at the Ziyaana,” I drawled sarcastically.
She grinned again. “I survived. We all do.”
By tacit agreement we returned to the bower together. I’timad surprised me a second time by looping her arm with mine, and when I looked at her, startled, she flashed me a grin again. Tariq rose from my seat when we reentered the bower, but I waved him down and found a seat opposite him, Idris, and ‘Adil. ‘Adil and Idris were currently deep in negotiations. From what I could gather, ‘Adil thought he was old enough to ride the horses. Idris disagreed.
A servant brought over a steaming glass of tea just as Idris turned to me, a gleam in his eye.
“Whatever it is,” I said, cradling the glass, “the answer is no.”
His eyes widened. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“And yet,” I drawled, “I recognize that look.”
He grinned slyly, then turned back to his cousin. “The truth is, dear cousin, you’re negotiating with the wrong person.”
‘Adil frowned. “The horses belong to you.”
“They belong to us,” he said. “They are a wedding gift, you see. And my lady wife—”
“Idris,” I warned.
“I’m only telling the truth,” he replied, all innocence. “My wife is the higher rank. So, in truth, the decision falls to her.”
“Absolutely not,” I said coolly. “This is a family affair. I recuse myself from this negotiation.”
I’timad’s eyes widened. “But aren’t you family now?” she said. “You have married my cousin.”
“Yes, Maram,” Idris said. “Is my family not your family as well?”
I did not answer the question. I had no idea how Maram would answer the question. Instead, I did as she would do and deflected. I set the glass down on the ceramic tabletop with a sharp clink and raised an eyebrow at the young boy, my expression cool.
“So, what is it you want, then?”
‘Adil’s posture straightened immediately. “To ride one of the stallions, cousin.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, watching his mouth tighten angrily. “You aren’t tall enough.”
“I could be!”
“This is not an argument of hypotheticals,” I replied. “It is a negotiation. You will have to make a concession.”
He frowned thoughtfully while Idris watched, bemused. “I will ride … under supervision.”
“And on an already broken stallion,” I added. He opened his mouth to complain and I raised an eyebro
w in Maram’s fashion. “Unless you would like to not ride at all.”
His shoulders sagged. “I’m old enough,” he muttered.
“My lord husband is barely old enough,” I said, voice dry. “That he is older than us both is the only reason he gets away with it.”
Idris cried out in protest as ‘Imad and I’timad burst into peals of laughter. Tariq clapped him on the shoulder.
“You will be making up for that the entirety of our visit, khouya,” Tariq said. “Honor demands it.”
‘Adil for his part seemed pleased with the sacrifice of Idris’s pride on the altar of his needing supervision. I felt some of the tension in my spine ease. Not for a moment had any of the cousins paused to wonder at my negotiation with their small cousin. I had walked the line between Maram and diplomacy well. Amid the revelry Idris caught my eye and gave me a small secret smile, and I felt my mouth twitch in answer.
* * *
So the day went. Eventually, the air cooled, and the orchard emptied. Idris and I retired to the royal chambers, and I found myself in the tower connected to the central courtyard. From there I could see both the flowering skirt of the city and the sea. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and sea and city both were awash in pinks and reds. It was a vision I had not thought to see ever. I shivered as a wind blew through the tower, and the fire in the bier flickered.
I rubbed my hands over my arms as I thought. I’timad’s invocation of family had been deliberate, I knew. A push to see what I—what Maram—would do. I’d handled it well, I thought. I hadn’t agreed to her assertion of family, but neither had I dismissed ‘Adil out of hand. A difficult dance. It had been too long since I’d had to manage so many people against my natural reactions and Maram’s.
A heavy mantle dropped over my shoulders and I jumped.
Idris had come up beside me without my hearing him. “You did well today,” he said. I looked up. “I’timad is … well, she’s intimidating.”
“She’s lovely,” I protested.
“She’s testing you,” he replied. “I don’t know that Maram would have passed the test.”
I felt a small kernel of pride at that and a shy smile emerged. He smiled back—the sort of smile he’d given me before his marriage. I expected him to look away, but he didn’t, and the longer I stared the more flushed I felt. It was moments like these, where I remembered what we were, what we’d been not so long ago, that were dangerous. That sparked along my skin like flecks of ember ready to turn to flame.
A log in the fire popped, and we jumped, our stare broken.
“How was the game?” I asked, remembering I’timad had challenged him to a game of shatranj before I retired.
“Tch,” he said, and I grinned.
“Did she beat you?”
“She did not.” He paused. “It was a stalemate.”
“How injurious to your pride.”
“I just didn’t expect it,” he grumbled.
“It seemed too obvious to warn you,” I laughed.
“It wasn’t obvious at all! She has none of the patience required for the game.”
He seemed so put out by it—not even a loss, but a deadlock with a competent rival.
“You’ve gone too long unchallenged,” I said and drew the mantle closer around me. “You must play her again—maybe she will take the board.”
“She will absolutely not. My honor is at stake now—my wife thinks I will be beat by a Mas’udi.”
I grinned again. “Did you come here to protest your competence or for some other purpose?”
“Come for a ride with me?” he asked.
I hesitated. It was a bad idea to be alone with him, so early in his marriage.
“As friends,” he said, voice low. Insistent. I swallowed against the sudden rush of electricity over my skin.
“As friends,” I repeated, and took his outstretched hand.
* * *
Idris led our horses down to the beach and they picked their way easily along the coast. The roar of the ocean and the sound of it battering itself along the cliff made it easy to talk without worrying anyone would overhear. There were drones far in the water, bobbing with the waves, watching us, and more guardsmen on the cliffs.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re almost there.” The beach didn’t end, but the cliff seemed to fold in on itself. We had ridden down the hillside of the city and then all the way down to reach the beach. The cave seemed to be directly below the city itself.
Idris disembarked from his horse then came around to my side to help me down. It was colder so much closer to the water, so late in the year. That was what I told myself as I looked up at him and shivered. His hands lay against my ribs and seemed to burn through the layers of clothes I wore.
Idris caught my hand in his and drew me close as we walked. He seemed to know this place as well as I did, which was to say not at all. Eventually what little sun’s light we had was swallowed up by the dark, and Idris drew several small orbs from his cloak. One sharp whistle and they all began to glow and lifted up into the air, lighting the path for us.
“Here we are,” he said, and led me out into a smaller cave with an opening facing the sea. But that, I knew immediately, was not why he’d brought me here. A vast mural sat inside.
“Dihya,” I breathed, walking toward it. It was twice or three times as high as I was and took up the entire wall. It was ancient, too, I could tell, and yet well preserved. A woman sat atop the promontory outside M’Gaadir, the ocean behind her. She was robed in Kushaila clothes, a deep, arresting green stitched with gold and white. At her shoulders were brooches in the shape of half diamonds, etched with Kushaila design. Her hair was threaded with pearls—white and coral and gray—and from her neck hung what looked like half a hundred strings of white pearls. Her daan was a sharp pictograph of a feather, its end situated perfectly between her eyebrows. She cast no shadow.
“Tala said you would know her name,” Idris said, coming up behind me.
“Houwa,” I said without looking away.
Houwa was prized among the Kushaila before they were ever called such, for she was clever and beautiful, and she had just a little magic in her blood that the tesleet taught her to use. And when her people were under siege by a conqueror king, she and her brothers plotted how to defeat him: she would marry the king and learn all the secrets of his army.
Each night Houwa suffered the advances of the king, and each night after he fell asleep, she would unstitch her shadow from her shoulders and her feet and loose it into the world to gather his secrets. Bit by bit, her brothers destroyed her husband’s armies with the information she and her shadow provided, until only a few of his generals remained. And on the eve of the final battle Houwa’s shadow led her brothers through the king’s war camp and into his royal tent where Houwa waited.
Together the brothers killed him and declared victory.
For most storytellers, the tale ended there. But my mother had told me a different ending. That with her service done, the shadow asked for a boon: to be made real so that she might live separate from Houwa’s demand and have her own life. Houwa used the last of her magic to free her shadow.
“The first of the Kushaila. Every royal family tracks their lineage to Kansa, but they forget that Kansa tracked her lineage from Houwa. We are in her birthplace.”
“Do you like it?” he asked.
I laughed in disbelief and looked up at him.
“Did you draw it to ask?”
“No.” He grinned.
My gaze returned to the mural. It brought me great joy to see it, but it was a sharp reminder, too. I was not Houwa. I was her shadow, sent out into the world to gather information only to be returned, stitched to Maram’s feet.
Idris’s voice pierced my melancholy. “But I remembered you had a liking for historic murals. Come,” he said, and took my hand. “We have some time yet. We can sit, away from the eyes of the court and the servants.”
A half-he
arted protest came to and died on my lips.
We sat against a wall without cushions or blankets, facing the mural.
“I’ve only been here once before,” he said. “To this cave, I mean. Before my parents died. Before Najat died.”
“Oh?” He so rarely talked of his family, and I found myself leaning closer without meaning to.
“My father took me down into the city after.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “We saw a fortune-teller.”
I could not control the laugh of disbelief. “You don’t strike me as the superstitious type.”
His grin widened. “I’m not. But her predictions were—well, none of them came true. I was a child, I took heart in what she said.”
“Did she cast bones?” I found myself a little intrigued. There were no soothsayers in our village. They gravitated to the larger cities where their trade was more tolerated.
“She read my palm,” he said. “She terrified me, you understand. She was old, and her eyes glitter in my memory. But she told me I would be happy, and that’s all a boy really wants to hear.”
“What did she tell your father?” I asked, curious.
“Nothing—he refused to have his future read.”
“Smart man,” I said.
Idris raised his eyebrows. “How so? Don’t tell me you believe in fortune-tellers?”
I huffed another incredulous laugh. “It’s not about the teller,” I said. “But the fortune. Good or ill, true or false, it haunts the listener. What?”
“I don’t know…” He shook his head as if shaking away the cobwebs of a dream. “You know, I still remember some of what she told me.”
“Your fortune?”
“No,” he smiled slyly. “She told me what certain lines on your palm might signify.”
I eyed him suspiciously as he took my hand into his and drew a thumb down its center.
“Shall we try?”
I said nothing, which he took as my acceptance. He bent his head over my hand and I waited, heart in my throat. Something had changed in the air in the heartbeat between taking my hand and now. His eyes were fixed on the palm of my hand, and his index finger hovered just a breadth above skin, tracing the lines in my palm. I found myself leaning closer, leaning my head forward so that my hair joined his in forming a curtain around my hand.