That was the state of the province Jehan had seized. It was easier to seize it than to tame it. But Jehan did not shrink from the challenge, and Golana joined him in meeting it with zest.
She moved in and was assigned private quarters in the temple, at the nerve center of the new regime. Jehan was unstinting in providing her with servants, secretaries, and whatever else she deemed needed. At her direction, the voluminous records stored in the old Vraddagoon were transferred over to the temple, and a library was started, with the remains of Mutsukh’s books as its core.
Long were the hours that Golana spent alone in her offices, often far into the night, and often too closeted with Jehan, as they wrestled together to quell the seething cauldron of Taroloweh. Jehan kept her as close at hand as possible. When he held court in the great hall, she was stationed beside the stone chair, and she was among the guests at every meal. And it wasn’t solely for her counsel that he kept her near: In this regime of former thugs and peasants, Madame Mutsukh was a dazzling ornament. Not only was she a handsome woman, but charming as well with a delightful wit and badinage.
But Madame Golana Mutsukh did not become the mistress of Jehan Henghmani.
Never did she offer herself, and never did he invite it. Not that he didn’t want her—he had never seen a woman more desirable! But she was too indispensable to risk offending with a clumsy overture. Still, that was not the only reason for Jehan’s reticence. Simply put, he was sure he couldn’t have her. Golana did not need to use her body to get what she wanted. She knew her own worth, and could refuse him confidently. Even contemptuously— and that was what Jehan feared most.
There was no dearth of other women for him. He would bed them for a night, but never more than once. And pretty as they might be, he never paid attention to their faces. In the dark, no matter who was in his bed, he’d see only Madame Mutsukh. She was like a spirit that occupied and obliterated every woman Jehan had. It was always Madame Mutsukh, her pale face, her tall body, her blazing eyes, that held him fast.
He would send the harlots out before dawn, in the dark, so Madame Mutsukh wouldn’t catch sight of them. In this secretive behavior, he was actuated by something new in him, something he had never felt before.
He felt guilty, an adulterer—betraying the one woman he could not have.
6
THAT WOMAN: WORDS muttered with venom throughout the Arbadakhar temple.
Jephos Kirdahi was one of those who muttered words like that. Kirdahi was still a general, the deputy commander of the army, Jehan’s right-hand man. Now, after the conquest of the capital, he functioned too—ostensibly —as Grand Chamberlain of Taroloweh. He was still agog that a fugitive ex-dungeon turnkey could rise to such a station, but at the same time, he was soured by Madame Mutsukh’s advent.
The Madame’s presence made it all too plain that Kirdahi was just a flunky whose high titles were awarded only because Jehan wouldn’t entrust them to anyone more dangerous. So Kirdahi was one of those who grumbled about “that woman.”
Nattahnam Ubuvasakh was another. The Leopard, as at Zidneppa, was named Magistrate. He had no affinity for Kirdahi and resented the Tnemghadi’s higher rank; but he and Kirdahi could agree on one thing, and that was Madame Mutsukh. The Leopard too could appreciate what little influence he had, with that woman hovering around Jehan. A woman! And even worse, a Tnemghadi.
As always, Kamil Kawaras cared nothing for himself. It did not bother the shaggy-haired zealot that a woman had more power. But that she was a Tnemghadi—that was another story! Even the ever-loyal Hnayim Yahu was openly heard to question Jehan’s wisdom. The two people now closest to Jehan were Tnemghadi. Some fine Urhemmedhin movement this was turning out to be!
One night an officer approached Jehan, handed him a sealed message, and left quickly without speaking.
Since he had never learned to read, Jehan had Madame Mutsukh summoned at once to read this note, so mysteriously delivered.
“It is badly written,” she commented, “from one named Gaffar Mussopo, battalion leader under Kawaras. Do you know him?”
“Yes, I think so. He’s one of my youngest officers. What does he say?”
“He warns that there is a great deal of discontent among your officers and troops—concerning me.”
Jehan nodded. “My men are upset because I take advice from a woman, and even worse, a Tnemghadi woman.”
“Obviously. He does mention Kawaras as being particularly wroth about it.”
“Yes, I’m sure crazy old Kamil must be wetting his kirtle over it.”
“There’s more. Mussopo says there’s been talk that ‘somebody should do something to get rid of this Tnemghadi whore.’ ”
“What do you think about this, Madame?”
“I’m not sure whether to worry or not. This message is not exactly startling news, but perhaps things are going too far. You know these men a good deal better than I do.”
“All right. To be on the safe side, I’ll assign some permanent guards to protect you. Men whom I trust fully.”
“I would be grateful for that.”
“And don’t forget to send a note in my name to Mussopo, thanking him for his conscientious message.” Madame Mutsukh snickered. “Conscientious? The boy probably hates me as much as the rest of them. The word ‘whore’ is in quotes, but it’s there. All he’s doing is trying to curry your favor by betraying his own superior officer.”
“In that case, he’s a shrewd fellow.” Jehan winked at Madame Mutsukh. “Send the note anyway.”
She nodded. “I suppose so. Hypocrisy is a fitting response to hypocrisy,” she said. Then she bit her lip thoughtfully. “Listen, besides assigning guards, I do believe more positive measures should be taken to deal with this problem. You can’t have all your men so unhappy, and guards won’t fix that.”
“I will talk to them, bring it out in the open.”
“Yes, that would be useful, it would clear the air. But I also think you should make more of a show of consulting with the others from now on, to satisfy their egos. And less show of consulting with me. We could be more discreet in some ways, and less discreet in other ways. To put it bluntly, I had best appear nothing more than a glorified concubine.”
Madame Mutsukh leaned back in her chair, in a slouching posture, and looked at Jehan through half-shut eyes. She knew full well what she had said.
“Yes,” he answered, “it can be made to appear that way.”
“Ksiritsa,” said Maiya. “When, Paban, are we going to Ksiritsa?”
“Don’t you like it here?” Jehan asked his daughter in return.
“That’s not the point. We’ve been sitting here twiddling our thumbs for months now. I want to see you on the golden throne, at Ksiritsa!”
Jehan’s answer was stolid. “When we are ready to go, we will go.”
“And when will that be? When Madame says so?”
Jehan sighed and gave Maiya a gently reproving look.
“It’s true, why don’t you admit it? It’s that woman who’s persuaded you to stay here.”
“Her advice is always very sound. We will march on Ksiritsa, just as soon as we’ve consolidated our stronghold here in Taroloweh.”
“So you admit she’s keeping us bottled up here. She is a sorceress,” Maiya taunted; “she’s bewitched you.”
Jehan tried to brush this off with no more than an amiable chuckle. He hated arguing with Maiya. Patting her hair, he said, “Don’t tell me that my little darling is jealous of Madame Mutsukh.”
Maiya’s face reddened. “I do not covet your . . . favors, Paban. I don’t begrudge you a mistresss”
“I think then,” Jehan said carefully, “you must be making more of Madame Mutsukh than she is.”
“No, it is you making more of her than she is. Golana Mutsukh is simply a beautiful woman, a fine mistress I’m sure. Besides the fact t
hat you’re making a fool of yourself over her, I don’t care if she is your mistress.
“You sound as though you do care.”
“Not about that! Dally with her day and night, for all I care. But don’t confuse her prowess in bed with wisdom at Court.”
Jehan smiled sardonically. “Maiya, you don’t know how wrong you are.”
“Oh, I understand all too well, Paban. She has obviously seduced you and gained complete mastery over you. She’s got you wound around her little finger. The real ruler of this province is not Jehan Henghmani; it’s Golana Mutsukh, Queen Golana. You are nothing but her consort!”
“Hold your spiteful tongue!” Jehan bellowed, checking an ugly impulse to strike his daughter.
“It’s true!”
“How dare you say such vile things? Now you listen to me. Every decision made here is my own. But I heed what Golana Mutsukh has to say, because I’d be a fool if I didn’t. What do I know about running a province? She has forgotten more than I ever knew, and whatever success I’ve had in governing Taroloweh, I owe to her.”
“You owe to her! Oh, Paban, don’t you see what’s happening to you? After all you’ve earned with your own blood and flesh, you’re giving it all up to a Tnemghadi woman. She won’t even let you put a crown on your head. Don’t you realize what that means?”
With effort, Jehan controlled his voice. “Maiya, surely if you were the least bit objective—”
“Objective? Ha! It isn’t my vision that’s blurred by lust!”
“All right. That’s enough out of you. I will hear no more of this.”
“Very well, Paban, I can see it’s hopeless. But I will tell you, you will yet rue the day that woman came here.”
Jehan turned away. He wondered if there wasn’t a grain of truth in Maiya’s viewpoint. Golana Mutsukh was not his mistress, emphatically not, and yet that very fact was a merciless buzzing in his head. Perhaps his vision was indeed blurred by it. He could not deny the power of her hold over him, nor could he make any real sense of his jumbled feelings about it. The woman was an uncanny force that had turned him upside down in a way he couldn’t fathom.
And as for Maiya, her own words echoed within her. She was ruing the day Golana Mutsukh had come to the Arbadakhar temple.
7
FROM BENEATH HER dark Tnemghadi brows, Golana Mutsukh watched Jehan Henghmani.
Ugliness was the most striking thing about Jehan at first, stupendous ugliness, his mutilations magnified by his gargantuan dimensions: hairless, noseless, earless, one eye torn from its socket.
But Golana saw beyond Jehan’s ugliness, just as she had come to see past the ugliness of Eshom Mutsukh. She had loved her husband, and had been his partner in life; his death had wracked her with grief.
Now there had come another misshapen man into her life. Jehan did not display the saintly virtues of the Magistrate Eshom Mutsukh, and Golana did not see him as filling the void left by Mutsukh’s death. But no less powerfully, for different reasons she was drawn to Jehan, and her life would take a new course.
Indeed, Jehan’s strong points could perhaps not be deemed virtues at all; it was their very strength that was compelling. That was why thousands had followed him across Taroloweh. While Golana’s attraction to him was of the intellect, she could nonetheless feel the pulsing magnetism that had carried him so far.
It was not his physical strength that held people to him. It was his strength of purpose, strength of mind. Not by physical strength alone had he survived three years of torture. Other men of robust constitution might have done it too, but come out with pudding for brains. Jehan’s faculties seemed sharpened by every ounce of agony that he’d endured, and all the vehemence expended on him was soaked up into his soul.
Even those who never saw him were drawn by Jehan’s legend. Truly, his return from Ksiritsa was fit fabric for legend, and he did nothing to deter his own entry into mythdom. Never would he speak of what had happened at Ksiritsa; and with his silence, the myth could only grow.
Golana’s husband, Eshom Mutsukh, had been a brilliant man, who perhaps should have achieved greatness. But Mutsukh had lacked ruthlessness; he was too scrupulous and timid to grab for the heights. Not so Jehan. Jehan would let nothing stand in the way of his ambition, and that was what Golana Mutsukh wanted now.
With glittering eyes beneath her dark Tnemghadi brows, Madame Golana Mutsukh looked across the table at Jehan Henghmani. It was past midnight, and the candles were burned to stumps. Piled high on the table were the documents of state business which they’d been discussing. They were alone, and it was very quiet.
They’d been hard at work for many hours. But now they were finally done for the night, and they leaned back in their chairs to relax briefly.
“You know,” Golana said, “it’s really about time you learned to read. At least Urhemmedhin, if not Tnemghadi. I would be most happy to teach you.”
“Why should I learn to read, when I’ve got you to read everything for me?”
“That may be true—for now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You may not have me always.”
“What’s the matter, Madame, aren’t you happy about things? You know I’ve tried to accommodate you with everything you’ve asked for. If there’s anything else you want, please speak up.”
The woman shook her head with a little laugh. “That’s not what I meant. I am very happy with the way things have turned out for me. It gives me great satisfaction to be working here like this, working with you. And yet. . . .”
“Yes?”
“May I have leave to ask a personal question?”
“Certainly, Madame. You are always free to say or ask whatever is on your mind. I value your candor.”
Golana looked carefully at Jehan, and slowly wet her lips with her tongue. Jehan was leaning forward with his hands clasped tensely on the table. She could see how anxiously he was hanging on her every word.
“Why is it that you’ve never sought to have me in your bed?”
Jehan was startled, and his scarred features pinkened deeply. Never before had Golana seen him blush. He self-consciously averted his eyes, and tried to guess why she would ask such a shocking question. Was she testing him? Teasing him?
“Madame, why do you ask this question?”
“You have not been shy about these matters with other women.”
“Don’t compare yourself with those harlots! Surely you realize how different you are. Do you think it’s shyness that lies behind my conduct toward you?”
“No, you’re not a shy man about anything . . . except, it seems, my question.”
“You have not answered my question either: Why do you raise this subject?”
Madame Mutsukh did not respond. She sat staring at Jehan with her eyes open strangely wide.
“It cannot be,” he warily suggested, “because you wish my conduct toward you to change.”
“You think it cannot? Why so?”
Jehan was suddenly convinced that she was teasing him, toying with him. Perhaps even baiting him. But he could not bring himself to chastise her for it. He bent his head to the table. What cause had he given her to be so cruel? Was it the whores he had at night, about which she evidently knew? Guilt pinched Jehan; his face was flushed deep red, and he wished he had been celibate. He felt so cheapened by what he’d done, behind her back. What contempt she must bear him!
“I will speak no more of this,” he stammered abruptly, and stood away from the table.
“Please, don’t go!” Golana seized his hand and held him back.
He turned his face to her, screwed up with anguish. “What do you Want from me? I’m sorry, but I’m still a man not a god, and certainly no saint!”
“I want you to give me a straight answer.”
“All right then, I will give it to you.” Jehan po
unded the table. “This is your answer: Yes, there are women who consent to lie with me. Do you know why? Of course you do. They come for money or favors. For that they grit their teeth and come to my bed. Behind their smiles and their kisses, they grit their teeth at the ugly monster they sleep with.”
“Yes, you are ugly!” Golana emphatically avowed. “You are very ugly! But it isn’t beauty that I seek.”
“Then what do you seek?”
“I seek you, Jehan Henghmani,” she answered instantly.
The man was dumbfounded, and took Golana by the shoulders across the table, shaking her. “What are you saying! You’d give yourself to me, even though you do not have to?”
“I would give myself to you because I want to. Because I want you. If you will have me.”
“If? Surely you know it is respect for you that has governed my conduct. I feared to offend you. I can’t even express how important you are to me.”
Golana lowered her eyes. “Then you will have me?” she whispered.
“It is you who shall have me, if that is your wish.”
She looked up with the demure, modest face of a little girl. “As what will I have you, Jehan Henghmani?”
“As whatever you desire.”
“Then I will have you for my husband.”
Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh twisted his porcine fingers in the perfumed curls of his latest favorite, lounging on the couch of his private chamber. He deliberately pulled on her hair until she winced, and then he slipped his hand under her garment and fondled her breast.
Sarbat was half-listening to the earnest words of his latest Grand Chamberlain. After a quarter-century reign, the words were beginning to seem like babbling, no matter what they were and no matter who spoke them. And the Emperor mused bitterly that he was changing Grand Chamberlains nowadays even oftener than his fickle favor shifted from one courtesan to another. For three decades, old Irajdhan had filled the post brilliantly. He was nearly eighty when he died, and what a loss his death had been! Then Hassim Baraka-Hatu had succeeded Irajdhan—but could not replace him. Nor could any of the three Grand Chamberlains who had, in quick succession, followed Baraka-Hatu. Were there no more great men like Yasiruwam Irajdhan?
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