Desert Wind

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “They swim in those frigid waters of theirs and that’s what makes them so hardy,” Vasquez commented. “And look at the Necromans! Have you ever seen men so burly?” He slapped his hat on his thigh. “What I wouldn’t give for a brace of those brawny darklings!”

  The harbor was filled to overflowing with humans and animals. Raucous noise vied with the skirl of strange instruments playing along the market lane. Delicious smells of frying foods and the pungent scents of spices filled the air. The recent rain had washed clean the cobblestone streets and there appeared to be a shine to the pathways leading to the market square.

  “I can see why you find the seafaring life so invigorating,” Halim told the Diabolusian captain. “It is exciting to see this remarkable crush of humanity and it not be in the midst of a battlefield!”

  Vasquez laughed. “Who said this isn’t a battlefield, my friend?” He slapped Halim on the back. “Wait until we begin the bargaining with our customers and you’ll see pitched battles that will make your hair turn white. It is not a sight for the faint of heart!”

  Walking alongside Vasquez up the gently sloped quay, Halim was craning his neck from side to side to take in as much of the rowdy sights as he could. He recognized a few of the countries represented but had to ask his companion to identify the others. He stared openmouthed at his first site of the Outer Kingdom giants who strutted past with their arms full of luxurious hides. The men looked like huge bears with their bushy beards and bristling hair.

  “There is the queen, herself,” Vasquez said, nudging Halim with his elbow. “Now that’s a woman I could wrap my legs around!”

  Halim craned his neck to see the woman being carried on an open litter. She was beautiful—beyond any doubt—but her eyes were cold as they swept over the crowd. Her servants pushed and shoved bystanders out of her way with no care for safety.

  “I wonder who the pretty one is,” Vasquez remarked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”

  Halim wasn’t paying attention to where Vasquez was looking. He was too busy following the antics of a pair of acrobats who had caught Exento’s attention. The Ojani sailor looked back to see if Halim was watching. Silently he jabbed a thumb to his chest to proclaim he could do the same thing as the acrobats. Halim waved a hand at him in dismal, laughing.

  Over the last month and a half, Halim and the captain had been instructing Exento on how to pull off the greatest con Vasquez had ever attempted—the impersonation of a royal prince. The Ojani had taken to the fraud like a fish to water and was looking forward to trying out what he’d learned when the Halcón docked at a secret cove along the coast of Asaraba known only to pirate crews. Somewhere along the many sea miles over with the ship had sailed, Halim and Exento had become almost as close as father and son.

  “You have transferred your feelings for your prince to Exento,” Vasquez observed.

  “In a way,” Halim had admitted, “but Exie is a different man, and I like him for his own warped sense of humor.”

  Neither man had learned anything of the Ojani’s former life, but then again they hadn’t really tried. All they were concerned with was Exento’s ability to pull off the scam that would make Vasquez a wealthy man and Halim a happy one.

  Vasquez frowned. “See that man behind the procession? He looks like a law officer I once had the misfortune of meeting.”

  Halim stared to question Vasquez about what the captain had just said but Exento took that moment to draw his attention.

  “Watch out where you’re going, Exie!” Halim called out. He hooted when his new friend nearly collided with one of the bearers carrying the queen’s litter and was shoved aside to land unceremoniously on his backside on the cobblestones. “Serves you right!”

  Exento got up, dusted off the seat of his pants, looked behind him to make sure he had the room then did a triple somersault that had the queen applauding, her cold eyes warming just a smidgen. She nodded to the servant walking beside the litter and that man tossed Exento a coin from the pouch he carried swinging from his waist.

  Halim saw the queen twist around in her seat and say something to the person behind her in another litter. When the young woman looked around, Halim felt his stomach plummet to his feet. As the young woman’s eyes met his, he saw the instant recognition and heard her shout, ordering her bearers to stop.

  “Put me down!” she yelled. “Put me down!”

  Across the distance, Halim was stunned to see the Princess Sitara this far from home and in a far-off land. He was so surprised he could not move and stood there with his eyes wide, his lips parted. Even when she scrambled from the litter and started running toward him, he could not seem to make his legs work.

  “Halim!” the princess shouted as she darted past Exento and came straight at the Asaraban captain. Her arms were open, her face joyful as she flung herself into his arms.

  Halim grunted from the force of her body slamming into his but he managed to wrap his arms around the young woman, tears already streaming down his cheeks. “Princess,” he said over and over again.

  She too was crying, and when he finally became aware of the disapproving eyes of the Oceanian queen lashing him with the promise of untold miseries, he pulled the princess’ arms from around his neck and eased her away from him.

  “How do you come to be here?” he asked at the same time she asked what he was doing there. They laughed, delighted at seeing one another again.

  “I thought you were dead,” Sitara said, searching his face.

  “Thanks be to the Prophet so did Bhaskar and your father’s men.” He told her how he had managed to survive then asked why she was in Oceania.

  “I could not stay in Kishnu,” she told him. “Not where…” She shook her head. “Oh, Halim! I am so happy to see you!”

  Exento had edged closer to where Halim was standing, not wanting to interfere with the reunion. Though he had no idea who the young woman was, it was obvious she was important to Halim for there was such delight in the older man’s face and he was actually crying!

  “You came on one of the ships?” Sitara asked, linking her arm through Halim’s.

  “On a Diabolusian merchant ship,” Halim lied, not wanting her to know he had been sailing on a pirate vessel. “My captain is somewhere in this throng.” He looked around but Vasquez was nowhere in sight.

  Sitara held his arm as though she were afraid he’d try to escape. “You did not go back to Asaraba, then?”

  “Not yet,” Halim said, “but I will.”

  “You’ll stay here with me a while, won’t you?” she asked, her heart in her youthful eyes. “Please say you will.”

  Halim smiled and started to tell her he would when he caught sight of Exento only a few feet behind the princess. His eyes flared and he shook his head vigorously in a silent attempt to warn the Ojani away.

  “But why not?” Sitara asked, her face falling. She thought he was declining her offer.

  “Your Grace,” Halim began, shifting his eyes to Exento, narrowing them, trying to get the man to understand. He spoke loud enough for the Ojani to hear. “I miss your husband Prince Ardalan as though he were my own. Nothing would give me more pleasure than spending time with his grieving widow.”

  Exento blanched, realizing what was happening. He turned to meld quickly into the crowd, but as he did, he ran right into a vendor whose shoulders were straining beneath a yoke carrying full buckets of water. The vendor fell backwards—the sloshing buckets drenching several bystanders—and Exento went to his knees hard enough to curse eloquently in Soqui.

  It seemed to Halim everything after that happened in very slow motion. He saw Exento fall to his knees, his hands slapping against the cobblestones. He heard the crowd laughing but it was a long, drawn-out sound that was like the roar of an ocean wave. He watched in horror as the princess slowly turned her head to see what had caused the fuss behind her. He flinched as Exento pushed himself up from the cobblestones—seeming to take forever in the process—and piv
oted his head around to look behind him. He saw Exento’s eyes widen as his gaze met that of the princess.

  “No,” Halim heard Princess Sitara say on a long note as she brought one hand up to her mouth at a snail’s pace.

  Exento had to have known the implications of what was happening. It would have been difficult for him to miss the look of shock on the princess’ face. He extended a hand toward her as though attempting to ease the distress forming on her beautiful, young face. In jerky, slow motions he cut his eyes to Halim, silently asking for help, then the Ojani turned and started to move away, but he never got a chance for the princess took that precise moment to faint dead away, her eyes rolling up in her head.

  Halim gasped, reaching out to grab the collapsing woman but Exento sprang forward and scooped her up. He stood there with her in his arms, staring at Halim as though the world were coming to an end, his face as pale as the snows on the Serenian Alps.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Who is that man?” the queen demanded as she came storming toward Halim. People spread back from her as though she were a mighty ship whose prow had pushed them aside.

  The Asaraban captain went to one knee in obeisance, his head lowered. He was shivering but it wasn’t for fear of the Oceanian monarch’s temper but out of concern for the princess.

  “Give her to my man!” the queen ordered.

  Exento swallowed as the man who had tossed him the golden coin practically snatched the princess out of his arms. He went down to his knee as Halim was doing, cutting his eyes across to the Asaraban as though pleading for instructions.

  “Get up!”

  Halim knew the queen meant him and came to his feet with a grunt. His attention went immediately to the unconscious princess and he heaved sigh of relief she was all right.

  “Who are you?” the queen snarled. When he only looked at her, she shouted the question in Soqui, the Asaraban language.

  “Captain Halim Evren, Your Majesty,” he answered quickly.

  The queen’s cold eyes became colder and she narrowed them dangerously. “Hasdu?”

  “Asaraban, Your Majesty.”

  Queen Enea turned the full force of her displeasure on Exento’s bent head. “And who the hell are you?” she asked in Soqui.

  Exento swallowed before speaking. “They call me Exento, Your Majesty.”

  “Well, get up!” the queen ordered.

  Exento stood up, trembling as though with the ague.

  Switching her fury to Halim, the queen took a step forward. “What ails the princess? What did you do to make her faint?”

  “Perhaps it was the heat, Your Majesty,” Halim said. “She looked a mite pale and then…”

  “Aye, she’s a mite pale,” the queen cut him off with a sneer. “The girl is with child.”

  Halim was staggered by that statement. He didn’t know what to say. All he could do was stare at the unconscious girl.

  “You,” the queen snapped, pointing at Halim. “On second thought, the both of you come with me. Now!”

  Waving her hand at the man who held the princess, the queen stomped back to her litter, got inside and ordered everyone to the palace.

  “Not a word,” Halim hissed to Exento as they walked toward the litter. “Not one Prophet-be-damned word out of you. Do you hear me?”

  “Aye, milord,” Exento murmured.

  * * * * *

  A runner was sent ahead to the palace and the court healer was waiting as soon as the princess was carried to the sitting room off the main hall. Sending everyone save the queen and one of the servant girls away, the healer did a quick exam of his patient and proclaimed her prostrated by the heat.

  “Keep her cool, wash her brow and wrists, and have her drink plenty of chilled beverages. This is not uncommon for the first trimester of pregnancy but I want you to keep a close watch on her,” the healer ordered the servant.

  The queen buttonholed the healer before he could excuse himself. She spoke to him in a low voice. “Would shock cause such a reaction?” she asked shrewdly.

  “It could, but I am certain it was simply a matter of the heat, the press of the crowd, Her Grace’s condition.”

  Nodding her acceptance of the healer’s diagnosis, she waved him away and ordered the guards who stood to either side of the main door to allow the two men waiting outside to come in.

  Halim and Exento were brought in and led to the queen’s private audience parlor, next door to the communal sitting room in which Sitara had been placed. They went to their knee as soon as they were in her presence.

  “I take it you and the princess are well acquainted else she would not have put her arms around you in such an unseemly manner. What were you to her late husband?” the queen queried.

  “I was captain of his personal guard, Your Majesty.”

  Sharp eyes shifted to Exento. “And just who the hell are you?”

  Exento swallowed audibly and looked to Halim for help.

  “May I explain, Your Majesty?” Halim asked.

  Queen Enea took a seat in her favorite wingback chair and regarded him with frosty eyes. “By all means, enlighten me.”

  “The princess mistook Exento for His Grace,” Halim said. “They bear a very close resemblance and—”

  “Does the sultan know his son is dead?” the queen interrupted him.

  “No, Your Majesty,” Halim replied. “I don’t believe he does.”

  “And why do you think that is, Captain?” she demanded.

  “Asaraba is a vast country, Your Majesty. I am sure news is on its way to the sultan and—”

  “You think so?” she cut him off, steepling her fingers beneath her chin. “And just who would be sending that news?”

  “Your Majesty, perhaps the maharaja sent word or—”

  “You know damned well the maharaja would not have lifted one finger to send any kind of news to Eshan Jaleem.” Her eyes became thin slits. “No more than my husband or I would have sent that maniac news, either good or bad.” She leaned forward in her chair. “To send any kind of emissary to Asaraba is to kiss that messenger’s arse goodbye! No one in their right mind would do such a thing.”

  Halim inclined his head. “Aye, Your Majesty, you are right.”

  “So,” she said, sitting back. “The old bastard doesn’t know the crown prince was murdered at the hands of his legal wife’s people and that she is now ensconced in a distant land pregnant with her husband’s child, the future Sultan of Asaraba.”

  “I am happy for her, Your Majesty,” Halim declared, even it meant the queen would punish him for his daring.

  “I am happy for her too, Captain,” the queen agreed. “As is her mother, although the princess has yet to relay the joyful news to her mother.”

  Halim looked up. “The maharani knows Princess Sitara is with child?”

  “You did not hear me say that, now did you, Captain?” the queen grated.

  “No, Your Majesty,” he said quickly. “I did not hear you say that.”

  “So humor me, Captain, and tell me what you are doing with a man who could pass for Ardalan Jaleem’s twin?”

  * * * * *

  Sitara swam up out of the darkness into which she had fallen, clawing her way past brutal memories that threatened to break her spirit. She was gasping by the time she burst free from the blackness and her heart was racing, the blood pounding in her ears.

  Opening her eyes and looking around her, she was disoriented. She had no idea where she was and how she came to be there. She sat up—the room tilting off-center around her—and had to reach out to grab the back of the settee to keep herself anchored.

  She heard voices coming from the room beyond and slowly turned her head that way. At first she was puzzled, but listening closely, she recognized the queen’s querulous tone and relaxed. She realized she was somewhere inside the palace. Trying to remember where she had been, what she had been doing, she could not seem to dredge up the immediate past. She remembered getting up that morning, dressing
, going out with her maids but where had she been going?

  “You could have scared the poor thing to death!” she heard the queen snarl. “Or worse yet caused her to have a miscarriage!”

  “By the Prophet, I swear to you, Your Majesty, if I had known she was here, I would not have let him off the ship!”

  Sitara recognized that voice too. It was Halim’s, Ardalan’s senior captain of the guard speaking in his thick Asaraban accent! She swung her feet carefully from the settee, a vague memory of having seen Halim at the market forming in her mind. He was alive. Her friend was really alive!

  “And what do you have to say for yourself, young man?” the queen pressed. “Do you have any concept of how much harm you could have caused?”

  Sitara started to get up, but it was another male voice responding to the queen’s query that made Sitara’s heart thud painfully in her chest and threatened to send her back into the darkness.

  “I would never do anything to harm her, Your Majesty,” the man swore.

  She slumped back on the settee, her hand at her throat, heart thundering in her breast. That voice! It reverberated through her head like lightning and sent a shiver all the way to her toes. Her lips were quivering as she sat there.

  “The two of you get the hell up from the floor and take a seat,” she heard the queen order. “If I wasn’t in such a good mood, I’d have the both of you thrown into the deepest part of my dungeon and I’d personally throw away the key!”

  Halim ducked his head beneath the fiery onslaught of the queen’s anger. If this was the queen in a good mood, he’d hate to see her in a bad one.

  “What am I going to tell her?” Queen Evea asked. “How am I going to break this to her?”

  Sitara closed her eyes, willing strength back into her legs. She tried to get up, collapsed back upon the seat then ground her teeth and forced her body from the settee. Taking small, hesitant steps, she made her way to the door behind which she heard the queen speaking.