Emissary

by Fiona McIntosh

  “Feel free to ask, Spur,” came the sardonic reply. “Zaradine Ana was just telling me that this was her deepest, most pleasurable sleep in thirteen moons. I certainly slept like a babe at the breast.”

  Lazar could believe it. Gone was the stoop of the Tariq of old; and the man standing before him belied his age of well past threescore years.

  “You look fit indeed, Tariq,” he replied. “I am glad you found some rest, Zaradine,” he added, unable to turn away from her just yet. The ache in his chest did not lessen when her eyes crinkled at their edges and he knew she smiled the smile that he held dear in his memory. He did not need the veil removed to know its brightness and warmth.

  “I thought I’d become soft in my time in the harem, Spur, but I suppose one’s heart never forgets what is closest to it. Memories of sleeping on a red blanket on the hard earth, beneath the stars of the foothills, are not lost to me and will remain my happiest.”

  To the Grand Vizier it must have sounded like the wistful memory of sleeping in her father’s home in the foothills and he smiled indulgently. “Then you are blessed, Zaradine Ana, to experience such pleasure again.”

  Lazar didn’t hear him. To him Ana’s words provoked a distraction that left him so deeply wounded he could not have come up with a reply if she had expected one. Ana was not referring to her father’s hut; she was recalling the nights spent traveling amongst the foothills after leaving her family dwelling, during which she slept in the company of two men—Lazar and Jumo. They had taken their time with the journey; even in her naïveté, Ana had known it didn’t take so many days to reach the city. During this time Lazar had given her his own red blanket to sleep on. She had commented at some point that such a hot color did not suit the Spur’s cool approach to life. And Jumo had quipped that a man’s desert blanket is the truest reflection of his spirit. Even Lazar had cracked a wry smile at that.

  Now all he could do was bow gently toward her, his throat closing with the emotion he was choking back.

  “So, we leave now?” The Grand Vizier interrupted his thoughts.

  Lazar coughed. “Er, yes, that’s what I’m here to tell you—” Before he could finish, the tent flap was thrown back and the Valide stomped out.

  “What time do you call this?” she demanded of everyone in her fury but especially the Spur. She looked glorious in her anger and dishevelment.

  But her beauty was winter to Ana’s beauty, which was all things summery—and that coldness had never held any allure for the Spur. “This time, Valide,” he said politely, “is what I call traveling time.”

  “It’s night, for Zarab’s sake!”

  “It’s the early hours of the morning before dawn, Valide. It is cool and safe for us to begin our journey before the heat of the day. The sun will be fierce in a few hours. I explained this.”

  “You explained little. You leave your servant to do all your bidding.”

  “Jumo is not my servant, nor is he yours. He is my friend.”

  “He is irrelevant, as is his status! I refuse to leave my tent until I have washed and breakfasted and it’s light enough for me to see which clothes I shall wear. Do you understand me, Spur?”

  Lazar sensed the smirk on Tariq’s face. He knew the Grand Vizier was enjoying watching the standoff, seeing how the Spur would handle the Valide’s bullying tactics.

  He bit back his own anger but his voice had lost the gentleness that had imbued it when he addressed the Zaradine. Now it was as hard and cool as the marble of the Stone Palace. “Valide, in the desert there is no status. I am sorry to enlighten you that your position in the palace carries only the weight that I allow. I permit that you are shown formal respect but you will not interrupt the resolution of what is—I think you’re forgetting—a diplomatic crisis.” He held up a finger. “First, there will be no washing in the desert from here on in. Today I will allow you a small bowl of water, as this is our first morning and water is still plentiful. It won’t be, starting tomorrow. We shall have only what we can carry, and that is needed for our sustenance, not our personal pleasure.”

  Another finger went up. “Second, if you can eat some flat-bread as you walk, that’s called breakfast, and I am happy for you to do so. If you prefer not to, you will have to wait until we mount the camels when you can nibble on your bread with one hand and drink from a skin with the other.” His voice became harder still. “And if that wounds your sense of etiquette, Valide, my personal apologies, but I shall have to ask you to wait until we have stopped for the day before you feast fully.” She opened her mouth to let fly with a new tirade but he stopped her with his third finger going up alongside its companions. “And third,” he said with a finality in his voice, “may I suggest that you adorn yourself as sensibly as the Zaradine and the Grand Vizier have chosen to do for this day’s travel. You will regret it otherwise. But it is, I might add, your choice.”

  He now turned to face all three of his royal party. “Gentle beasts have been chosen for you. The men are waiting over by the camels. Please cover your heads now, for the sands will begin their fun.” He gave no further eye contact to the Valide, instead turning to address the waiting Elim.

  “Take the tents down immediately—I’ll give you only minutes to get it all packed away and onto the beasts.” He bowed to his guests and strode away.

  But Herezah unwisely stalked him, stabbing at him with her manicured finger. “How dare you speak to me like that, Lazar. You are my servant, you—”

  Lazar swung around. “In the desert I am King, Valide; I am your god, your master, your ruler. You will do as I say in order to stay alive. My job for my Zar is to get you and the royal party safely to Galinsea to broker a peace between our two realms. And then I am charged to bring you back to Percheron safely. I am not your servant, and something you should perhaps realize, Valide, is that I never have been. You are the slave, bought by a harem to pleasure a Zar. I chose my role for Percheron, you were sold into it.”

  Her voice, when it came, was a whisper. “Oh, there will be a reckoning for this when we get back to the palace, Lazar. You are never going to survive this indiscretion.”

  He leaned close. “Remember who you speak to, Herezah…I am the heir to the enemy throne and I can keep you captive in Galinsea if I so choose.” Of course his threat was empty but she didn’t know that. He turned away from her and this time she let him walk away.

  Only they shared the exchange, only they knew the threat they had made to each other. And only Lazar knew how suddenly terrified Herezah must have felt as her realization hit of where she was, without a single ally. No Salmeo to do her bidding, a Grand Vizier who no longer fussed around her, no royal son to protect her with his status. Around her was controlled hostility everywhere she turned.

  “Lazar!” she yelled to his retreating back.

  He didn’t turn, kept walking away from her, but held five fingers in the air so she knew that was the number of minutes she had before he would move the caravan out.

  She returned angrily to her tent, already being expertly brought down at one end.

  “Please, Valide,” a senior Elim urged, “please let us help you dress.”

  Lazar had left her no choice but to meekly enter her half-crumpled tent and put on the colorless, lightweight robes that were already laid out.

  Behind her, and out of earshot, the Grand Vizier and the Zaradine shared a conspiratorial smile.

  “I think this journey is going to be very good for our Valide,” Maliz whispered to his companion. “And highly entertaining for us.”

  THE CARAVAN OF TWO dozen camels set off not long after, Lazar asking everyone to lead their beasts for the first couple of hours.

  “When the sun is out fully,” he explained, “we mount up, to conserve your energy. We will stop moving when the sun is at its fiercest and then move again at the end of the day and into evening.” And that was all he said before the slow-moving beasts took their first steps into the wilderness. Herezah and Ana walked with Tariq, with
Elim leading their camels as well as their own.

  No one spoke. There was not much to say after the fiery confrontation earlier. Everyone probably believed Herezah was sulking but whether she was or—more likely—was deep in her agile thoughts, she remained sensibly quiet behind her veil. Ana seemed to be enjoying the early-morning silence, which was broken only by the call of wild birds of prey. Maliz looked unmoved by the desolate vista sprawling before them. Jumo dropped back to offer some advice to the royal party.

  Up ahead, Pez and Lazar moved slightly apart from the others, the dwarf skipping, pointing at the sky.

  “What have you seen?” Lazar asked.

  “A great deal of sand. Nothing stirs, apart from the odd scorpion or lizard. No problems as far as I can see, although I had to be very careful and will have to continue being watchful.” Lazar gave him a quizzical look. “You can hear the falcon up above?” Lazar nodded. “There were others and they’d like nothing more than to bring down a large snowy owl on the wing,” Pez explained testily.

  The Spur looked toward the horizon, where the sun sat on its rim: a great fiery ball, promising a furnace not too much later in the day. He looked up and saw a lone falcon, a fearsome hunter that could stalk and kill a desert bustard despite its prey’s poison liquid, as easily as it could a pigeon. And then he looked across the golden wilderness as the last clumps of patchy grass lost their fight and capitulated fully to the parched sands of the Great Waste. He had survived this once before and he intended to do so again, but he felt a twist of fear in his gut. He was responsible now for so many other lives.

  “This is madness, Pez,” he murmured.

  “We have no choice. If fighting a battle of our faith is not hard enough, we now face war with our fellowman.” He shook his head with disgust.

  “And it’s all my fault,” Lazar muttered. “I could have averted this.”

  “How? By going yourself?”

  “Of course! My reluctance to go alone means we are all under threat and this perilous journey guarantees nothing.” He sounded helpless.

  “Lazar, tell me what your father would do if you did appear before him.”

  “There would be no war with Percheron.”

  “And?”

  “I would be put to death.”

  “I see,” Pez said thoughtfully. He paused and then spoke again, firmly this time. “Can you unequivocally guarantee that there would be no war with our realm?”

  It was the Spur’s turn to pause and consider. He took his time, so long in fact that Pez could have been forgiven for thinking he’d forgotten a question had been posed.

  “I cannot give that guarantee.”

  “Why?” There was satisfaction in the dwarf ’s tone.

  “Because of all the kings of Galinsea who have resisted the temptation to invade Percheron for its riches, I believe in my heart that my father is the weakest with regard to its seductions.”

  “So, in taking full blame and presenting yourself at the palace at Galinsea we risk not only losing you to the grave but we still run equal risk of war, even after having given our lives to chance in the desert.”

  “I regret that you paint an accurate picture.”

  “Then stop blaming yourself. You are doing the right thing, taking the best option by keeping yourself alive to lead our men if required whilst also escorting the one person who might just be able to broker the peace we need.”

  “What if my father wants war anyway? This is the best excuse he’s ever had.”

  “I think that has already occurred to all of us, Lazar,” Pez counseled gently. “Boaz would have worked this out from the very first moment he met the Galinsean dignitaries. As Zar, he has to leave no stone unturned to keep his people in peace. Your idea to marry him to Ana was inspired. If anyone can charm a king, Ana can.”

  Lazar sneered. “If you knew my father, you’d know that he is not prey to the usual foibles of a man.”

  “I think I do know your father,” Pez said, and winked at his friend. “I think the man I call friend well reflects his blood-line.”

  “Ah, well,” Lazar said very softly, almost a sigh. “This is probably true to some extent.”

  “What happened between you two?” It was obvious that Pez didn’t expect a reply, or more likely anticipated being told to mind his own business, because surprise registered on his face and his skipping halted momentarily when he was answered.

  “I loved a woman that my parents did not approve of. Keep skipping, Pez.”

  “Not from the right family?” the dwarf asked, hopping now.

  “You could say that,” Lazar said, giving a sorry smile. “She was…” He trailed off.

  “Special?”

  Lazar nodded.

  “I presume she is no longer alive for you to be unable to so much as speak her name,” Pez said gently.

  “Yes, she is dead.”

  “Killed by your parents?” Pez asked, his tone filled with dis-belief.

  “I like to see them as murderers, but a more generous, perhaps more realistic, person might say that they helped contrive a situation that would prompt her death.”

  “She killed herself?”

  Lazar nodded sadly. “It was the only way she felt she could prevent our family being torn apart. I was the son, the heir, and my father would not have her as the next Queen.”

  “Her death achieved nothing, then.”

  “Nothing toward healing the rift in our family, no. And nothing toward ensuring that the present heir to Galinsea take the throne. But she offered me my freedom through her act, and her bravery gave me the courage to not ignore that gift. I did not look back once I fled Galinsea. I did not want kingship, did not want to preside over a nation that preferred to steal art—or raze it—rather than create its own. Most Galinseans are heathens when it comes to art or poetry, music and dance.”

  “I’m sure you are too harsh, Lazar. Did it not occur to you that you could be a King who changed his people’s attitudes?”

  “I was eighteen when I fled Galinsea.”

  Pez took Lazar’s hand. “And Boaz is seventeen and running his realm.”

  Lazar looked abashed. “He is a better man than me.”

  “And now you speak rubbish like a true Galinsean! When will you accept that you were born to lead? You can’t help yourself; you have kingship qualities in your blood—you cannot escape your line.”

  “I have.”

  “And yet here we go, heading back to Galinsea from where you hail, from where you fled, from where you think you can hide.”

  “You’re right,” Lazar admitted. “I can no longer hide.”

  “That’s right. It won’t stop here. Your parents will find you.”

  “I know. I have been thinking that once this is over—if we can avert war—maybe I’ll leave Percheron.”

  “Run away again? We need you, Lazar. Boaz needs you, and more importantly, Percheron itself needs you—not just because you are its Spur, but I’ll risk boring you again by reminding you that we are caught up in a different battle as well.”

  “That one has to wait.”

  “It will take its own course as and when it chooses.”

  “As and when you know who the Goddess is,” Lazar reminded him.

  Pez ignored his gibe and left the topic of Galinsea alone for the time being. “Have you noticed how friendly he is to her?”

  Lazar didn’t need to ask to whom Pez was referring. “Yes.” He sighed. “She is falling for his charms.” He noticed the dwarf balk. “Oh, I don’t mean he is seducing her for her flesh. No, he is winning her as a friend, something Ana so badly needs. I can’t blame her for being attracted to his charismatic ways. If we didn’t know better, perhaps we might fall for them, too.”

  “I can’t tell you how dangerous this situation will become if Maliz gets her under some sort of influence.”

  “She is not Lyana. Her very presence here, alive and well, should assure you of that.”

  “It doesn’t!” Pe
z snapped. “Ellyana said it would be different this time. And it is. Ana is involved. Her very name suggests she is.”

  “Now you’re grasping at the proverbial camel’s hair, Pez, and you don’t have a good grip.”

  “If you don’t trust me, at least humor me. Have I ever led you down a wrong path? Please, if just for my own sanity, go along with this. Allow that I might be right, that he is preying on her.” Pez cartwheeled and Lazar patiently walked alongside, waiting for the dwarf to return to his skipping beside him.

  “For what?” he continued when Pez had rejoined him. “What can he gain?”

  “If she is not Lyana, as you claim, then I have to presume he believes that she knows who Lyana is, or that she can lead us to the real Goddess.”

  That stopped Lazar in his tracks. “I hadn’t considered that.”

  “Well, do so now. And keep walking. He watches our every move.”

  “Hush,” Lazar warned as Salim approached.

  Pez was already humming a nonsense song and picking his nose.

  “We should mount up now,” the Khalid suggested.

  Lazar nodded and held a hand up to slow the column to a halt. Pez moved forward, striding on his short legs, adding a skip every few steps.

  Lazar could feel the sweat seeping into the back of his shirt. As he walked toward the royals over the soft flurry of the sands, he wrapped the desert turban around his face so that only his light eyes could be seen.

  He bowed. “Valide, Zaradine. We ride from here for the next two hours.”

  “I have never ridden a camel before,” Herezah said, still sulky.

  “I will show you, Valide. Come, I will get you mounted.” He flicked a glance toward Ana and saw the soft hurt flash in her gaze. “Zaradine Ana, Salim here will help you onto your beast. Tariq…”

  “I can manage, thank you, Spur,” the Grand Vizier said, and shooed away any help. “You looked as though you were in deep conversation with Pez, but the Zaradine here says that Pez was just talking his usual nonsense, that you apparently humor him.”