‘How did you get in here?’ I asked instead.
‘I’m Albish.’ He said it like it explained everything. When he was met with my blank expression, he continued. ‘Our country is crawling with magic. My mother is a quarter Faye and my father half.’ Faye. That was the northern word for their Djinn. Only they were creatures of water and soft earth. ‘If it’s stone, I can walk through it. See?’ He’d allowed himself to sink back while he was talking to me and was now elbow deep in the stone wall of the palace.
It was as impressive as anything I could do; I’d give him that. ‘What’s an Albish thief doing in Izman?’
‘My talents were wasted in Albis.’ He righted himself and the stone shifted just a little bit back into place. ‘Thought I’d bring them to your desert, where people wouldn’t expect a man of my talents to come after their jewels. The habit of locking valuables in an iron box doesn’t seem to have made it here yet.’ He wasn’t lying. I could tell that much. But he was hiding something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There were easier places to go than Izman if it was just money he was after. Countries that weren’t in the middle of a war, for one. But he was what I’d been waiting for, someone who could get in and out of the palace at will. And I’d been raised in Dustwalk, where we didn’t look gift horses in the mouth.
I grabbed my cousin’s arm and pulled her away from the wall, out of earshot of Sam, the Blue-Eyed Bandit impostor. She shook me off with a roll of her eyes that needled at me, but this wasn’t the time to get annoyed at her. ‘Can I trust him? Truthfully, Shira – can I trust him with something important? A whole lot of lives?’
‘I’ve had him send letters for me to Dustwalk,’ she said after a moment. ‘To my family.’ I wondered if I was imagining the hardness in the way she said my. Even now she couldn’t help but remind me that, though we shared blood and had lived under the same roof, I’d never truly be part of her family. ‘Well, letters and some money.’ I’d barely given any thought to Dustwalk in months, except to thank God that I was out of there. But I cast my mind back now. Dustwalk without a factory, with nothing, destroyed. It would be a miracle if the whole town hadn’t decamped or starved to death by now.
Shira trusted this man with her family. I could trust him with mine. I turned back to Sam, who was incompetently trying to tie his sheema back up. ‘Could you carry a message out for me?’
‘Of course.’ I winced as he tucked the edge of his sheema in all wrong. It was painful to watch. A toddler could do better than that. ‘How much?’
‘How much what?’
‘How much will you pay me to carry this message?’ He repeated it carefully, like it might be his Mirajin that was at fault.
I glanced at Shira, who splayed empty hands at me pointedly. ‘The Sultim thinks I’m too modest to wear any of the jewellery he gives me.’ Now that I thought about it, I realised she was surprisingly unadorned for the harem. Ayet wore gold bangles from wrist to elbow some days. She clacked with metal with every gesture. ‘Truth is, I just put them to very good use. Everything that happens within the walls of the harem is a trade. The sooner you figure that out, the more likely you are to survive.’
‘I don’t have any jewels,’ I said to Sam. ‘You’ve already taken my reputation. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Well, you weren’t making very good use of it. I think I’ve done you a favour. Besides, stories belong to the people,’ he said. ‘And considering you are very much trapped, it’s going to take more than that.’
I ran my tongue across my teeth, thinking. I could probably get something to trade with if I had a few days. Some of the girls in the harem weren’t all that careful. It wouldn’t be that hard to take a bangle off them when they slept. But I wasn’t sure I had that much time to waste. And there might be another way. ‘The message I need you to carry, it’s for Shazad Al-Hamad, General Hamad’s daughter, he’s—’
‘I know who General Hamad is,’ Sam said, and for a moment the cocky, smiling man was gone.
‘Then you ought to know he’s got money. A lot of it. And so does his daughter.’ I paused, then added, ‘His breathtakingly gorgeous daughter.’ Shazad would have my head if she could hear me describe her like this to some foreign thief. I wasn’t even sure she was in Izman, but she was still my best shot.
‘I like her already,’ Sam said. But there was a note of sarcasm under there. He rubbed a spot on the base of one of the fingers of his left hand. It was a distracted gesture, far away. I got the feeling he didn’t even wholly know what he was doing. ‘Why should she believe me? The general’s rich, spoiled daughter.’ Shazad would definitely have Sam’s head for calling her spoiled. Here was hoping he had the good sense not to do it to her face.
‘Just tell her the Blue-Eyed Bandit is in the palace.’ I didn’t dare give him anything else to pass on to her. Not about the Sultan having a Djinni or anything else. Not yet, anyway. I’d risked enough by giving him my identity. ‘The real one. And that she needs someone to watch her back.’
Chapter 20
The Nameless Boy
In a kingdom across the sea, a farmer and his wife lived in a hovel with their six children. They were so poor, they had nothing to give their children but love. And quickly they learned that love was not enough to keep their children fed or warm. Three of their children died in their first winter, too weak to survive the cold. So when their seventh child was born, a son, on the darkest, coldest day of the bleak winter, they did not give him a name, so prepared were they for him to die.
But their nameless son survived that darkest day. And the one that followed. He lived through his first winter and into the spring. And he lived through his second winter. And, in his second spring, he finally earned a name.
The once-nameless boy was quick and clever and had a talent for going places he was not meant to be, so long as the walls were made of stone. And he saw that his family was poor while others were rich and he did not think this was fair. So when his mother became sick, in the boy’s seventh winter, he took food from kitchens with more shelves than his to feed her and he took silver from other houses to buy her medicine. That was how he walked into the castle on the hill that belonged to the lord of that county, and into the life of the lord’s young daughter.
The lord’s young daughter was lonely in the great castle, but she was rich, too, and she had learned she could have anything by asking for it. So when she asked for the boy’s friendship, he gave it to her gladly. He taught her games and she taught him to read. She learned she was gifted at skipping stones across a pond on a bright summer day and he learned he was gifted at languages spoken in distant corners of the world.
As they grew older, he became healthy and strong and handsome. So handsome that the lord’s daughter noticed. She was still rich and there had never been anything in the world that she could not get simply by asking. So when she asked for the boy’s heart, he gave that to her gladly, too.
The two met secretly in all the hidden places they had found together as children.
The once-nameless boy’s brothers warned him against the lord’s daughter. They had all married poor girls who lived in the shadow of the great castle and though they were poor, they were all happy enough. But the once-nameless boy had read too many stories of worthy farmers’ sons who married princesses, and highwaymen who stole rich ladies’ hearts, to heed his brothers’ warnings. He believed that he had stolen the girl’s heart as well as gifted her his.
So the boy was greatly surprised when it was announced to the whole county that the lord’s daughter was to be married to the second son of the lord from a neighbouring county.
The once-nameless boy left word for the lord’s daughter asking her to meet him in their secret place by the water. He waited there all night, but she did not come. He waited the next night and still she did not come; and the next night after that, too. Finally, the night before the lord’s daughter was to be wed, the once-nameless boy walked through the walls of the castle and, there, he found the
lord’s daughter, pale hair spread across a white silk pillow, beautiful and fair in the moonlight. He knelt by her bed and woke her from her slumber and asked her to come away with him, to run away and marry him. He was on his knees, but he did not beg because he never thought he would need to. He never imagined she would refuse him. But the lord’s daughter did not take his hand. Instead she laughed at him and called her guards, handing him back his heart on the way out of the castle.
And so he learned then that girls with titles did not marry once-nameless boys.
The boy became determined to no longer be nameless. So he signed his life to his queen and donned a uniform, pledging to earn his name by fighting for his sovereign and his land. He travelled to a kingdom across the sea, the land without winter.
There, instead of a name for himself, he found blood and guns and sand. He knew that nobody lost their names as quickly as the dead, so he fled once more. He hid himself in the sprawling city of Izman, a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds like he’d never known. When he first grew hungry he remembered what he had once been good at: going places he didn’t belong. He stole a loaf of bread his first night in the city, which he ate sitting atop a prayer house, looking out over the rooftops. On the second night he stole a fistful of foreign coins that he traded for a bed. On his third he took a necklace which could have easily fed all his parents’ children for a year. As he learned to slip in and out with ease among the streets, he heard a name being whispered. One that didn’t truly seem to belong to anyone. A legend. So he took it for himself. He used the name to take other things. Rich people’s jewels and careless men’s wives. He even stole a princess’s heart, like the thieves in the stories he knew. But this time he was not foolish enough to give his in return. He had learned not to give things away to anyone who asked.
And so he had a name. And it fit him so well that he almost started to believe it was truly his. Until he met the girl who it belonged to. The girl in the harem with eyes that could light the world on fire. She was asking for his help.
He was to carry a message to a general’s daughter. He found her home easily. It was a large house with a red door in the wealthiest part of the city. He waited on a corner, watching the door, servants coming and going, watching people wearing a small fortune’s worth of jewels on their hands wave at each other, as he waited for the girl.
Finally he saw the general’s daughter.
He knew her before she even placed her hand on the red door. She was beautiful enough that it was as difficult to look at her as it was to stare at the sun. She was like something crafted her whole life with the purpose only to be seen and coveted. And she moved with the easy certainty of someone who knew that her place in the world was above most.
As soon as he saw her he recognised her, though they had never met.
Her hair and skin and eyes were dark, where the lord’s daughter had been as pale as milk. Her clothes were colours stolen from the Djinn, where the lord’s daughter’s had been the colours of the rainy skies and the rivers and the fresh grass. But they were the same. She was the kind of girl who thought she deserved everything just by asking for it.
And he knew that if he knocked on the red door he would be turned away with a scoff and a wave. Because nameless bandits were not invited in to talk to generals’ daughters.
So he waited for nightfall in the city. Windows in the street lit up one by one and then went dark as silence drew down across the city. Except for the window that belonged to the general’s daughter. He watched that window into the dark hours of the night until finally that light went out, too. And the once-nameless boy did what he did best and walked into somewhere he wasn’t supposed to go, straight through the wall and up the stairs to where she slept.
She was sprawled across colourful pillows, dark hair covering her face. He knelt down next to her bed, to wake her from her slumber. But before he could say a word he found a knife to his throat.
It had happened so quickly he hadn’t seen the general’s daughter move.
‘Who are you?’ she asked. She didn’t look afraid. He saw then that he’d been entirely wrong. She was not like the lord’s daughter at all. She had not been crafted to be seen and coveted. She had crafted herself to fool the world. And the easy certainty of her step was the knowledge that she was being underestimated. And she got what she asked for because she asked for it from the right end of a blade. ‘Answer me quickly and correctly or you’ll never speak another lie again.’ She pressed the blade towards his throat.
And suddenly, the once-nameless boy knew he didn’t want a stolen name, tarnished with use. What he wanted desperately was a name good enough to give to this girl. But until he had that, he would have to use another.
‘I’ve come in the name of the Blue-Eyed Bandit.’
Chapter 21
I knew something was different when I was woken up by three servants instead of by the sun. I was being propped up to a sitting position and my kurti pulled over my head before I was even fully awake.
‘What’s happening?’ I made a grab for the hem, but something new was being draped around me already.
‘The Sultim has ordered that you will attend him in court today.’ The servant who answered was the same one who’d brought me into the harem. I’d never gotten her name out of her.
And here I thought I was off-limits. But I supposed that was only to being treated as a wife, not as a thing to be polished up and put on display. I yanked my arm back towards myself as a woman scraped something rough along my fingernails. She grabbed my hand back and started again, making me wince at the noise.
‘It’s a great honour.’ The servant gathered my long hair up, fastening a clasp behind my neck. Not a necklace, I realised; this was meant to pass for a khalat. It was fine blue cloth stitched with black that matched my hair. Except it left half of me bare. My arms, my shoulder, and half my back were exposed. I almost laughed. This would never pass for desert clothes, not in a place where the sun beat down on every bit of skin it could find. This was the luxury of a city. And the decadence of a harem. She pulled me to my feet so that the clothes fell over my loose shalvar. At least I seemed to be allowed to keep that on.
I could make this real difficult for them if I wanted to. I could resist and make the Sultan dictate my every movement. But the last thing I wanted was more orders.
And I got the feeling that, as hard as I could make things for them, the Sultim could probably make them a whole lot harder for me.
Besides, I was being permitted to leave the harem, even if it wasn’t out of the palace. It’d been seven days since I’d sent Sam to Shazad. Seven days of the same lazy indifference that marked every day in the harem. It wasn’t like waking up in the rebel camp. The tension in my bones wasn’t matched by anyone else’s. The restlessness of an impending battle, the fear of not knowing – they were mine alone. I’d even gone to the Weeping Wall once or twice and strung up the white cloth into the huge tree, hoping the signal would bring him back. Nothing.
Everything depended on a stupid boy who couldn’t even tie a sheema right and there was nothing else I could do except wait for news. Wait like Sabriya for Prince Aziz. Helpless and blind to see who would die in battle. I felt like I might lose my mind.
I’d be damn stupid to turn down a shot at getting a look outside.
*
The parts of the palace that they led me through now weren’t near so empty as those I had followed the Sultan through. Servants scurried past us, heads bowed, carrying platters heavy with colourful fruit or crisp clean linens. A small gaggle of Xichian men in what looked like travelling clothes sat in a garden that we passed. My neck craned their way instinctively as Jin dashed across my thoughts. A man dressed finely enough to be an emir and trailing three identically dressed women swept down the hallway ahead of us, disappearing up a staircase. A pair of foreign-looking men in strange uniforms stepped aside as we passed. My heart jumped at the sight of them. They looked Gallan. But no, their uniform was wro
ng. Albish, maybe?
We rounded another corner. I knew the Gallan on sight. Two soldiers flanked an unremarkable-looking man in plain clothes. Their uniforms were glaringly familiar, sending a twist of fear through me. But the soldiers weren’t the most unsettling ones. There was something about the plain-clothed Gallan man; his eyes cut right through me. I could feel them in my back as we continued on.
Two dozen curious faces turned my way the second the doors to the Sultan’s receiving garden opened. All of them belonged to men, seated haphazardly around the garden on cushions. The Sultan’s councillors. They were all soft-looking intellectual types. Like Mahdi. Pale from lack of sunlight, too many hours spent inside studying the world and not enough living in it. Servants hovered around them like a swarm, wielding fans and pitchers of sweet fruit juices.
There was only one man who stood apart from the circus. He was about of an age with Ahmed and Jin and wearing a spotless white-and-gold army uniform. He didn’t sit. Instead he stood, straight as a statue, arms clasped behind his back, eyes straight ahead like he was awaiting orders. There was a pang of familiarity as I looked at him that I couldn’t quite place.
At the head of the garden, raised above his court, was the Sultan. He lifted his eyebrows a tiny bit as he saw me. So he hadn’t known that his son had given me permission to leave the harem. Kadir sat at his right hand. Ayet was draped around her husband’s shoulders, wearing the same khalat I was, but in a glaring red with silver threads. She was there to be shown off and she knew it, too, twisting her bare back to the court, showing off the complicated henna designs that decorated her spine. At Kadir’s feet was Uzma, wearing the same garment in green across her tiny frame. I glanced around for Mouhna. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Kadir pointedly rested his hand on the cushion to the opposite side of Ayet. I would’ve given just about anything to not have to sit there. But I didn’t have that choice.
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