He’d known it to be a desperate idea from the beginning, but these were desperate days. He was saved from saying more when the lookout in the ship ahead of them called, “Ships ahead! Two points off the starboard bow!”
More called from nearby ships, confirming the sighting. Immediately, the mood went from one of tight efficiency to unease. Everyone on these ships, including Emre, had been worried that Onur’s ships would catch up to them. It seemed improbable that Onur could have raced ahead, but Emre had seen enough from Onur that he wouldn’t discount it, either. He stood on the gunwale and shielded his eyes from the relentless sun. He saw nothing immediately, but as the pilot eased the ship’s heading toward the starboard side, he spotted them. Dozens of ships in a cluster, their sails lowered.
“They’re not Onur’s!” their crewman called from the vulture’s nest. “They’re flying a blue pennant with a white device.”
“A mountain peak?” Emre called up.
“Aye. It might be.”
A great joy welled up inside him. “It’s the thirteenth tribe! It’s Ishaq and Macide.”
Emre had underestimated just how much Tribe Kadri hoped to find the thirteenth tribe. All across the ship a cheer went up. The men and women on deck threw their hands to the sky. The cheer spread to other ships, all across their small fleet. It was so loud that their own spotter’s calls were lost for a time. He was hanging like a fool from the vulture’s nest atop the mainmast, waving for the captain’s attention.
“Be quiet!” Emre called, dropping down to deck and waving them to silence. “Quiet!”
“Ships aft! Ships aft!” the spotter, a thin stick of a man, called, pointing wildly to the desert behind the Autumn Rose. Everyone turned. When the ship took a rise, they came into view: dozens of ships a bit north of their current position, sailing on an intercept course. “Ships of the White Spear!” the spotter called. “King Onur’s ships!”
Shaikh Aríz moved aftward along with the captain of the ship, a man named Ali-Budrek, who had become something like Aríz’s vizir. Behind them Shal’alara came as well, her face grim.
“What shall we do?” Aríz asked them all.
Before the battle, he’d been fifth in line to inherit the mantle of shaikh. After Mihir had been killed, along with two others, it had left only Aríz’s father, who barely escaped with his life. His father’s wounds were many, however, and became infected; they delivered him to the farther fields three days into their journey, leaving Aríz with more responsibility than he could handle.
As young as Aríz was, he was no fool. His question showed more wisdom than men twice his age might show. Onur’s ships were distant yet. It was likely they hadn’t spotted the thirteenth tribe, but if they continued on their present course, they surely would, which would place the whole of tribe Khiyanat in danger.
Emre looked again to the Khiyanat ships, sails down, anchored for the night. He couldn’t allow Onur to catch them unaware. “Here’s what we’ll do.”
As Emre laid out his plan, Aríz fidgeted. He looked to the stocky Ali-Budrek, but also to Shal’alara, another he’d come to trust for her shrewd opinions and, not inconsequentially, Emre suspected, the winks and lewd jokes she directed at him. Aríz seemed nervous, even scared, but by the time Emre was done, a hopefulness, almost eagerness, had displaced some of the fear. Emre was proud of him. It will serve you well over the course of the coming day, he thought.
Ali-Budrek nodded his agreement with Emre’s plan, though not without some reservation showing on his dour face. Shal’alara did as well. Haddad remained silent, but when Aríz asked for her opinion, she gave her assent and pledged her ship to aid in the effort. In the end, Aríz agreed, and soon their ragtag fleet had begun maneuvering in a grand arc southward. All except for one. The Widow’s Scythe—a cutter, and their fastest ship—sped in the opposite direction on full sail, making for the huddled ships of the thirteenth tribe.
Chapter 52
ON THE NIGHT following the battle at Thaash’s temple, Meryam summoned Ramahd to her apartments. When he arrived she was curled crookedly in her padded chair, leaning over her desk as a fire roared nearby, fending off the cold of the night.
“My queen,” he said, standing in the doorway.
“Come.” She summoned him with a perfunctory wave, hardly taking her eyes from the extensive letter she was writing. Despite the fire, she shivered enough to make her hand quiver as she wrote. More concerning, however, was the fact that she was wearing the amulet again. The outer doors were open, revealing the sapphire in its gilded cage.
“You’ll catch your death,” Ramahd said as he headed across the room to close the windows.
“I enjoy the night breeze.”
“You’re not yet recovered, Meryam.”
“My queen.”
“You’re not yet recovered, my queen.”
Meryam slapped the ebony quill down on the table. Ink splattered over the papyrus and the leather blotter beneath it. “I would think after all these years you’d trust me to take care of my body, Ramahd.”
“I would think after all these years you’d recognize when you’re pushing yourself too far. Look at you. You’re breathing hard doing nothing more than writing. Hamzakiir is gone. So is Guhldrathen. We’re safe for a time.”
“We are anything but safe. The moment we accepted Kiral’s summons to Eventide, we entered into a silent war. It’s only a matter of time before it escalates.”
“All the more reason not to expend yourself too soon.”
Emotions warred on her face as she stared at him. She put visible effort into stifling it, however, and picked up her quill once more. “I need you to deliver this letter to the Enclave.”
The Enclave was not a place, but rather a fellowship of other magi. Meryam had long ago reached out to those in Sharakhai with abilities like hers, first and foremost so that she wouldn’t be considered an enemy, but also to share in their vow of mutual protection from the Kings and other threats.
“Cicio can go.”
“I’ve sent Cicio and Vrago to fetch supplies.”
“Then I’ll give it to Amaryllis.”
“Given recent events, this is too important. I would have you do it, Ramahd.”
“Very well. Where this time?” The locations of drops like these changed weekly, sometimes daily, following the whims of the Enclaves’ members.
“Hog’s Hollow.”
Hog’s Hollow was an oud parlor on the quay of the western harbor, a favorite of the sandsmen. Most called it The Hog, others Hog Swallow, as only pigs would eat the swill that came from their kitchen. It was as distant and inconvenient a location as could have been chosen. Even on horseback he’d be gone for well over an hour, but they’d agreed to avoid using horses for such trips; they were a rarity in most quarters of the city and attracted too much attention.
When Meryam finished writing she blew on the ink, rolled the scroll up, and applied a green wax, melting it with heat from the tip of her finger. That done, she pressed the seal of Qaimir into it. The entire time, her hands trembled.
Ramahd accepted the scroll, bowing his head to her. “Anything else?”
“That’s all.”
“Before I go, my queen, might I ask you to close the doors of the amulet?”
A quizzical look came over her. She stared down, as if she were surprised to find it open. “I’ll do as I please.”
“Meryam, that gem is nothing to toy with. We agreed you’d only open it if it was important. If it was necessary.”
This time, she showed no irritation at the use of her name. “So we did,” she said, clipping the doors closed. “Are you pleased now?”
“I won’t be pleased until that infernal device has been removed from our lives.”
“This device is going to lift our country to heights it has never seen, Ramahd.”
“I woul
d like nothing more, but even you must admit that it could just as easily ruin us.”
Meryam practically fell back into her chair, as if she couldn’t pretend to be nice any longer. “Go, Ramahd. Return to me when you’re done.”
Basilio was waiting outside Meryam’s rooms as Ramahd left. He watched Ramahd with a satisfied smirk. Ramahd stopped and turned to him. “Do you have anything to say?”
“Me?” Basilio said. “Of course not, my lord. And please”—he bowed and waved toward the door that led to the stables—“I wouldn’t dream of keeping you.”
Ramahd turned and left, leaving Basilio to his smugness. I will take a horse, Ramahd decided. He was still concerned over being discreet, but there was a tavern along the Trough whose owner was a Qaimiran emigre; he would put up Ramahd’s horse and let him slip out the back with no questions asked. As he rode through the gates of the embassy house, however, and the pikeman in their royal livery nodded to him, he began to wonder at Meryam’s attitude. Why send him. He wasn’t above it, but she’d acted as though it were imperative that Ramahd be the one to go.
Add to that Basilio’s self-satisfied reaction to his leaving, as well as Vrago and Cicio being conveniently away, and Ramahd soon found himself reining his horse to a stop. He turned to look back at the embassy’s dark profile. It was lit strangely in the light of dusk, like a burning ember about to be extinguished.
He kicked his horse into a trot, heading back the way he’d come. He knew what he was about to do was a small betrayal, but he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts.
As one traveled along King’s Road there were a smattering of smaller embassies from distant lands, each little more than a cluster of small buildings—residences, stables, a barracks for the soldiers who protect foreign dignitaries. The four primary houses, however—Qaimir’s, Mirea’s, Malasan’s, Kundhun’s—were more impressive, with surrounding walls, larger estates and stables, and barracks to house larger contingents of soldiers.
Before he came near the Qaimiri compound, Ramahd guided his horse off the road and spurred it over a low hill to reach an orchard. There was little chance of being discovered. The orchard backed up to a small manor, abandoned for over a year after the previous ambassador, a man from a tiny country east of Malasan, had been hung for bedding one of the Kings’ married daughters. Ramahd continued beyond the northern border of the estate and made for a hill where an ancient watchtower stood. The tower, too, was abandoned by all but a few children who lived nearby. But it was empty now—the perfect place to keep an eye on the entrance of the Qaimiri embassy house.
Behind the compound, obscuring much of the city, loomed the curtain wall that surrounded the whole of the House of Kings. Beyond lay the southern expanse of the city, where the huge mansions and sprawling green estates of Goldenhill gave way to the progressively smaller, though still wealthy, manors of Blackfire Gate and Hanging Gardens.
He waited as the sun set, giving way to starlight and Rhia’s dim crescent. He was beginning to feel embarrassed as the minutes passed, increasingly sure it had been only paranoia that had driven him here. But then a coach pulled by two horses came rumbling down King’s Road from the direction of the palaces. It slowed before the Qaimiri embassy house and was let in. Through the iron gates, Ramahd could see the coach pull around the carriage circle and come to a stop before the doors. The driver dropped down. Two Maidens riding on the rear of the coach hopped off and followed. The rest was lost to darkness.
Ramahd felt a strange numbness running through him. He and Meryam had been through much. Years spent in Qaimir before the Bloody Passage. Years more in Sharakhai, hunting Macide, the one responsible for the murder of his wife and child and dozens of others. The months they’d spent in Viaroza and then their return to the desert as pawns of Hamzakiir. The two of them were often at odds over this or that. But he’d never thought that Meryam would distrust him.
Did she question his loyalty to Qaimir? His loyalty to her? Or was her apparent distrust merely an indicator that she wanted to keep certain things secret from as many people as possible, for as long as possible? He might have believed the last had she not sent his most trusted men away on the same night. Mighty Alu, the thought of Meryam trusting Basilio more than himself made his blood boil. He was tempted to ride through the main gate, order anyone who saw him to look the other way—queen’s business, he might tell them—and confront her. But they may have received orders to stop him should he return. And there was no telling what the Maidens might do should he arrive uninvited.
So instead he left his horse tied to a bush behind the tower, and ran quick and low down the hill, to head for the place where the embassy house wall intersected with the Kings’ larger curtain wall. The wall itself was made of sandstone and had iron spikes along the top. A thick bush growing at the base of the wall caught his clothes in its branches as he slipped past it. And there, hidden away, was a steel door—an escape route created generations ago and a portal to which only a select few had keys. Ramahd took his from the small pouch at his belt and fit it into the lock. It took some doing, but the lock was oiled several times a year and eventually turned over.
He pulled the door open slowly. The ensuing creak sounded as loud as the great horns used to announce the Kings on festival days, and yet no cry of alarm was raised, and he heard no signs of approach. Once inside the grounds, he studied the darkened yard, the stables and paddock to his left, the guest house and the servants’ quarters nestled along the far wall. To his right, the towering bulk of the mansion stared down. Various lamps from within made it look like the head of a desert titan, its many eyes alight in anger.
He sped quietly across the carriage path leading to the front of the estate, slipped over a low garden wall, and used a trellis to reach the second floor. After one last climb along a drain pipe, he reached the patio outside Meryam’s apartments. He rather suspected that for a meeting such as this, Meryam would avoid the audience room on the first floor. Indeed, as he came nearer to the patio doors he heard voices, Meryam’s soft tones and Kiral’s baritone, both of which were difficult to hear.
He wondered, though, why not meet in Eventide? It seemed likely Kiral was trying to hide something, but from whom? People in his own palace? The King of Whispers?
“You promised me Hamzakiir’s head on a platter,” Kiral was saying as Ramahd crouched near the doors.
“And you will have it.”
“So you say, but our trap was sprung too soon.”
Ramahd leaned closer to the door and peered between the curtains. Meryam was seated in her opulent silver chair, her back to the door so that Ramahd could see only her right arm along the armrest. Kiral sat opposite her in the chair Ramahd often took while in discussion with Meryam. The fire in the hearth threw wavering light against his rich clothes, his closely shorn hair, his stark, pockmarked face. His eyes sparked like flint, as unamused as crumbling granite.
“The element of surprise is now lost, true, but there’s little danger to us just yet. I was able to sense him as he fled east of the city and into the desert.”
“Little danger?” Kiral countered. “He may have returned since then. He may be in the city now, waiting for his time to strike. To steal into Eventide to slit my throat! I would if I were him.”
“There’s little Hamzakiir fears, but he fears Guhldrathen greatly, and now he knows that Guhldrathen has found a way to steal into Sharakhai.” Meryam’s fingers scratched at a stitch in the embroidery of her chair, then brushed something invisible away. “No, I feel certain Hamzakiir will remain in the desert. He doesn’t know what you’ve told the other Kings. His fears of the tide turning against him will have grown by the hour.”
“Then what do you propose?”
“He’ll move to secure power in the desert in any way he can. He has allies in the tribes, but most are too spread out for his purposes.”
“Except to the east.”
/> “Except to the east,” Meryam echoed, “the very direction Hamzakiir fled. Onur has already gathered several thousand spears to his banner. More may soon follow. If Hamzakiir can come to an accord with Onur, or dominate him as he did me, he would have a base for power that Sharakhai and all Four Kingdoms should rightly fear.”
Kiral considered this. “What you say seems likely, but it will cement his power, making it all the more difficult for you to kill him.”
“True, but what does an ehrekh care for that? Guhldrathen is still our best chance at bringing Hamzakiir down.”
“Unless you’re planning to send Lord Amansir to stand by Onur’s side, we no longer have a means of luring Guhldrathen to him.”
“Another lure might be fashioned,” Meryam said. “Have you brought Çedamihn’s blood?”
Ramahd started at the mention of Çeda’s name. Breath of the desert, what does any of this have to do with her?
“I’ve brought it, but how might she be used as a lure?”
“Çeda has escaped the House of Kings,” Meryam replied. “Where do you think she’ll go now?”
Kiral adjusted in his seat. “She’ll return to her people in the desert.”
“Exactly. And where do you suppose Onur will go next? Will he sail for Sharakhai to begin his improbable conquest? Or will he face the smaller threat along his flank before it becomes a larger one?”
As Kiral’s jaw worked, deep shadows cascaded over his cheeks. “It would need to be coordinated so that Çeda and Hamzakiir are together when you summon the ehrekh.”
“True to a degree, but no great amount of accuracy will be required. As long as the two of them are within a few leagues of one another, Guhldrathen will sense Hamzakiir and change course.”
“You’re certain?”
A Veil of Spears Page 50