Heart of Flame

by Janine Ashbless

  “Vizier Najib,” said the guard captain, with a little bow. “This man attacked one of my guards. He will be punished.”

  “He unveiled my wife, sayyid,” said Rafiq through gritted teeth. His chin was being forced back on the point of a blade.

  “Is that true, Captain?” The vizier looked from face to face, his gaze resting momentarily on Taqla. “Did he lay hands on this woman?”

  “He did.” The captain sounded grudging.

  “That’s against the laws of Bokhara and of God. He knows that.”

  Taqla, wondering what on earth Rafiq had been thinking of to play the injured husband and let fly like that, allowed her gaze to slip to his face. She was shocked to realize he hadn’t been thinking at all. She could see the rage in his eyes and there was nothing feigned about it. He was shaking with fury. What? she thought. What’s brought this on?

  “On the other hand,” said the vizier grimly, “no one lifts his hand to the amir’s guards with impunity.”

  Taqla focused sharply. She took hold of the ring of smoky glass on her little finger and shaped the first words of the spell of darkness—and instantly the vizier lashed out, striking her hard enough across the face to knock her off her feet. Taqla was so shocked that it took a moment for her to even register the pain, or the blood running into her mouth where she’d cut the inside of her cheek on her own teeth.

  “Gag her,” said the vizier, as the room spun around her. He bent briefly to her ear. “We wouldn’t want you pulling that sort of trick in the palace, would we?” he murmured, so low that no one else in the room could have heard. Then he straightened again. “Bind them both and take them to the chamber of questioning.”

  A twist of cloth was forced between Taqla’s teeth and knotted at the back of her head, and then she was dragged to her feet. The overriding physical need in those first moments was to keep swallowing the blood seeping into her mouth so that she could breathe. She threw a desperate glance at Rafiq, but his arms were being tied behind his back. They weren’t particularly gentle with him either, and he took several cuffs to the face. Together they were marched through the halls of the palace of Bokhara, down dim, tiled corridors and across courtyards where fountains played, until finally they were prodded and hauled up a spiral staircase to an upper floor and into a room.

  It wasn’t an unpleasant chamber, except that it was oddly bare. Carved mashrabiya screens covered the windows from outside eyes and kept the interior dim. A single divan couch and a low table faced three columns, and Rafiq and Taqla were quickly bound with their backs to two of those pillars. There were no carpets on the floor, just a layering of dark splatters upon the boards. Taqla took that particular feature in and her eyes opened wide. She tried to catch Rafiq’s glance but he had problems of his own. As soon as the guards had secured his wrists around the pillar and bound them with cord, the captain stepped round in front of him and clenched his fist.

  “This is for my soldier,” he said, and punched Rafiq hard in the stomach. Taqla squealed with protest through her gag as Rafiq folded, stopped from collapsing only by his bonds. He didn’t cry out but he did groan, and the guards laughed at that. Then the captain crossed over to the column where she was pinned. He pulled down her headcloth, which was half secured by the gag, and looked her deliberately and lingeringly in the face. Taqla’s eyes would have spat fire if they’d been able, but he didn’t seem to notice, being too busy making his point. He pinched her cheek disparagingly and cast a derisive and challenging glance back over at Rafiq. Then he signalled his men and they marched out of the room, all except one who stood with scimitar drawn by the door.

  Her face burning, Taqla risked a glance in Rafiq’s direction. He was slumped against his bonds as if his head was too heavy to lift, still gasping, his expression filled with pain. Taqla’s stomach roiled with conflicting emotions. She was both frightened and angry, and that anger was directed partly at Rafiq who had ditched them in this situation. But at the same time she ached to go over and stroke back the hair fallen across his face and comfort him and assure herself that he was all right.

  Rafiq lifted his head and looked at her, stricken, his eyes burning. “Taqla—”

  “Shut up!” The guard by the door hefted his sword. Rafiq felt silent and straightened up gingerly. Taqla thought how much she wanted to take his face in her hands and touch her lips to his, and knowing this, and that she was unveiled, she turned her face away self-consciously. Her mind was fooling with her, she reprimanded herself with some disgust. It was trying to avoid the terror of the situation by throwing up these distracting phantoms. She should be trying to think of a way out, not wasting her time.

  But what could she could do without speech?

  She didn’t have long to think about it, to her surprise. Within a few minutes the door opened again and in walked Vizier Najib. He was a big, handsome man, some part of her recognized grudgingly. The gray in his beard did not hide the breadth of his shoulders or the fact that he stalked like a leopard. Around his lean waist was a thickly embroidered sash into which was thrust a curved Turk-style dagger and a scabbarded scimitar. He placed a goblet of wine down on the table and looked at them both thoughtfully.

  “Leave us,” he told the guard. Then when the three of them were alone, he folded his arms over his chest. “I have at least an hour before the amir is due to admit the throng into his august presence and will require my advice. The notion occurred to me—why should I not spend it with two disturbers of the peace? So, who will talk to me?” He glanced at Taqla and smiled. “Not you, I think.” His gaze flitted back to Rafiq. “You then.”

  “Right Hand of the amir,” Rafiq said, guardedly. His face was bruised and his lip cut and swollen.

  “So who are you?”

  “My name is Rafiq ibn-Jurraia al-Dimashq, sayyid, and I’m a merchant. Ask at the caravanserai for those who will vouch for me.”

  “I will. A merchant selling what?”

  “Nothing at the moment. Our caravan was washed away by a flash flood in a wadi, our camels drowned, our companions scattered. We came to Bokhara seeking shelter.”

  “Really? A fine story. Now tell me why you tried to bring a sorceress into the amir’s presence.”

  “A sorceress? Her? As I told you, she’s my wife.”

  Najib waved a hand negligently and walked over to Taqla, looking her in the face with some interest. She lowered her eyes, not out of shyness but out of desire that he see her as nothing but a respectable and wronged woman. It didn’t work for a moment. “She’s a witch.” He ran his hands over the pouches hanging at her belt, taking the time to measure the shape of her waist and hips and slide a hand between her legs. She jerked in shock.

  “Sayyid, you are mistaken,” said Rafiq very coldly.

  The vizier found the hard bulge that betrayed the ball of silver wire and extracted it from its pocket. “Interesting. What’s this?” He cocked an eyebrow. Taqla couldn’t stop her eyes flashing in protest as she fought a wave of panic.

  “Just silver,” said Rafiq. “Easier to exchange than coin in some places.”

  “Hmm.” The vizier put the ball down on the table and approached Taqla again, walking around her with a knowing smile. “A fine collection of rings you have there,” he remarked, taking her bound hands in his.

  Taqla clenched her fists, feeling the cord bite into her wrists.

  Najib sighed. “I can always cut them off,” he murmured into her ear and she shivered, knowing she had little choice. When she opened her hands again, he stripped the rings from her fingers, examined them one by one and laid them out in a line upon the table. It was painful to be parted from the tools she relied upon. She could feel sweat gathering at her temples.

  “We came only to ask the favour of the amir,” said Rafiq through gritted teeth. “We mean no trouble in Bokhara.”

  The vizier ignored that. He returned to Taqla yet again. “Any more?” he asked her, reaching for her throat. Under Zahir’s stout outer jacket, which he
tugged open, she was wearing a high-necked shirt of fine cotton. He took that between his hands and ripped it, baring her breastbone. Taqla tried to swivel away, but he grabbed her shoulder with a heavy hand, pinning her in place so he could grope under the torn fabric.

  “Get your hands off her!” Rafiq roared.

  “You have a hasty temper, friend,” said Najib, squeezing Taqla’s breast. “Very nice,” he added, eyes glittering, as she protested through the sodden gag. He pinched her nipple, twisting it painfully, and then, just as abruptly, he let go and walked away, confronting Rafiq eye to eye. “She’s most appealing, isn’t she? Have you had her in the form of a boy yet? She can do that, you know. She can take any form that pleases you.”

  Taqla, her right nipple stinging and swollen, nearly choked as she tried to draw gasping breaths through her gag. She felt her eyes fill with welling tears and she swallowed wildly, her jaw aching. Meanwhile Rafiq opened his mouth, very obviously to utter an imprecation as offensive as humanly possible, but then bit down on the words, his breath hissing through his bared teeth.

  “Talk to me, my friend,” said Najib lazily. “Do you understand your situation? I am the vizier here and it’s my position to protect the amir. He’s an old, frail man who just wishes to be left alone to enjoy his hashish and his women. Tell me what you two were planning here…or believe me I will do things to the girl that you will not enjoy watching.”

  Rafiq snapped his head back in frustration, banging it against the pillar. “I’m a merchant—a trader!”

  “And the witch?”

  “My bodyguard,” he said, his grin belying the cold hate in his eyes.

  The vizier laughed appreciatively. “Better. What were you planning to do?”

  “I carry a message, that’s all, for the ruler of Bokhara.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It’s something I’m often paid to do when I travel—take messages.”

  “Show me.”

  “It’s not written down.”

  “Then what have you been paid to say?”

  “I can’t tell you that. It’s for the recipient alone.”

  “From whom?”

  “Again, I cannot say.”

  Dazed and frantic, Taqla was aware that Rafiq had remembered her warnings that the instructions of the god should be carried out very literally—if the message were to reach Adhur-Anahid through gossip or a third party the compact would certainly be void.

  “That’s…very interesting.” The vizier leaned in closer, and from the expression on his face he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. “Now, you see, you have piqued my curiosity. What do I have to do to get you to talk, my friend?”

  He sank his hand into Rafiq’s crotch. Taqla stopped breathing. Rafiq seemed to gain several inches of height as his spine straightened and all expression left his face. The two men stared into each other’s eyes, faces almost touching.

  “Ah now, no protests this time?” The vizier chuckled lightly. “In all honesty you’re as much to my taste as the little sorceress, friend. Why don’t I cut out the bit where she gets hurt and just move straight on to hurting you? Or do you like it rough?” His hand, buried in the loose cloth of Rafiq’s trousers, moved with lavish purpose.

  “Adhur-Anahid,” said Rafiq in a clear voice. “You must give to Yaghuth the bending of the knee. You are to surrender to Yaghuth that which you promised him. He says to tell you that the time has come.”

  Vizier Najib froze. Taqla saw the color drain out of his face until he was quite gray, like a dyed rag that had been left to weather outdoors for too long. “What did you call me?” he said, taking a step back.

  “Banebshenan Banebshenan Adhur-Anahid is what I named you. Why—had you forgotten the name?” There was a grim triumph burning in Rafiq’s eyes. He was surer of himself by the heartbeat. “How many years since you last heard it?”

  The vizier ran his tongue across his dry lips. “That name turned to dust long ago.”

  “But you didn’t. And now the time of payment has come.”

  Najib backed away and sat down on the divan. “Already?”

  “Already,” said Rafiq remorselessly.

  “But I had such plans…”

  “Nevertheless.”

  Swallowing, the vizier nodded. “How did he find me? I thought I was well hidden.”

  “Ardashir betrayed you.”

  “Ah. That’s cruel.” He turned briefly toward Taqla. “I should have guessed that Yaghuth had sent you.”

  “Then perhaps you wouldn’t have treated her so shoddily. Do you think he’s a forgiving god? Or a patient one?”

  Najib’s mouth pulled into an ugly shape. “No. You’ll return to him?”

  Taqla saw Rafiq hesitate before he said, “God willing.”

  “Then you must take what I owe him.” The vizier stood abruptly and dropped his multi-colored robe from his shoulders, letting it hang from his belt. The silk shirt beneath was swept off over his head revealing a hard torso flecked with tight gray curls of hair, and then he unsheathed his knife from its steel scabbard. Taqla felt a bolt of panic strike her in the entrails as it occurred to her that what was owed to Yaghuth was a blood-sacrifice, and she saw the same realization hit Rafiq too as Najib stood and approached him, stepping round to his rear. Her companion was completely vulnerable from that position, his throat unshielded. Rafiq turned his head and looked her in the face, his expression full of such intense purpose that her heart nearly stopped in her chest. She lurched in her bonds, struggling despite the futility to get her hands free, until the cord cut into the raw flesh of her wrists. All the while searching desperately for the solution his eyes begged for.

  “Taqla—” he said roughly.

  The knife swept out and down, through the cord at his wrists, seeming to part the rope at a touch. Rafiq nearly fell forward off the pillar.

  “May you have as much joy of his service as I,” said the vizier bitterly—then turned the knife to his own belly, just below the ribs on his left side, and plunged the blade in to the hilt. By the time Rafiq had turned and realized what was happening, Najib had opened a gash a span wide in the skin.

  Taqla couldn’t scream, but she made a groan in her throat of utter revulsion. There was no blood. She’d been expecting a great deal of blood. Instead there was only a black trickle like hot lacquer seeping from the edges of the wound—even when the vizier dropped the knife and thrust his right hand deep into the cut and right up to the wrist and beyond in his own chest cavity. His face twisted. The muscles of his chest and arm clenched and worked. Sweat sprang up on every inch of his skin. Then with obviously immense effort, he wrenched his hand free again—and in it was clutched a lump of green stone the size of two joined fists, webbed with black slime.

  “Here,” he said, holding it out to Rafiq, who stood aghast. “Take it.”

  He had the presence of mind not to touch the thing, which, Taqla could just about make out, was carved in the shape of a heart with protruding veins and arteries—but picked up the broad end of his cloth belt and reluctantly accepted the jade in that.

  Najib sighed. “Never enough time,” he said under his breath, and then his eyes rolled up and his knees folded and he collapsed slowly to the bare floor.

  For a long time both of them just stared. Then Rafiq set his jaw and wordlessly knotted the stone up in the trailing end of his belt, to make a little bundle that sat over his hip. Stooping, he picked up the knife and wiped it clean on the fallen man’s robe. Taqla shut her eyes and tried to pull enough air through her nose to stop herself passing out.

  She opened them again when she heard his footfalls approach, and the heart she was sure had stopped in her chest began to thump painfully. Once more she was horribly aware of her torn clothing, her exposure. “Don’t look at me,” she tried to say, but through the gag it came out only as a kind of whimper. Nevertheless Rafiq understood. She saw in his face that he was trying not to look at the raw edges of the shirt and the inner curves of her
breasts that the rent revealed. He tried, but he failed, and as his gaze fell on her he slowed, as if his veins were filling with lead. She in turn tried to hold herself motionless, but she couldn’t stop the heave of her chest.

  His gaze lifted to her face again. He looked, she thought, tired and needful and dangerous. He stepped to her side, laid one hand on her shoulder and, with the other, hooked the curved knife blade under the cords that bound her wrists and sliced through them. She felt every strand as they gave way. But as she shifted her aching arms back in front of her and flexed her bloodless fingers, he didn’t remove his hand. It stayed on her shoulder, heavy, not uncomfortable, almost a caress—but not quite. The treacherous part of her wanted nothing more than to turn and burrow into that embrace, to grab him and crush her body against his in relief and reassurance that he was alive and unharmed and he was freeing her. More, her right nipple was still burning and she couldn’t help but imagine how his fingers would soothe and comfort that.

  Why does he wait? asked that secret, shameless, voice inside her. Just as so often before he had stepped over the line of propriety, but no further. Was he waiting for her to respond? If she said the right words, made the right gesture, would he touch her breast and not just her shoulder?

  It felt as if something inside her were twisted to the point of tearing. She was barely aware that she was reaching up with one hand to fumble for the knot at the back of her head.

  “Hold still,” said Rafiq softly. He insinuated the point of the knife between the gag and the bare flesh of her cheek, and the cloth gave way with a tiny purr only audible to her. She shivered as the touch of the metal raised an instinctive alarm. The treacherous voice inside her fell silent.

  “There’s an enchantment,” she said, pulling the gag from her mouth. Her voice was hoarse and her jaw ached.

  “What?”

  “On that blade. I’m guessing Najib would have been immune to normal weapons. Keep it carefully.” She folded one hand over her bare breastbone and stepped away from him, not daring to look back. Fumbling a little because her fingers were still numb, she tugged her outer layer back over her torn shirt and secured them as best she could. At the same time she crammed every one of her turbulent emotions back into the confines of her heart. Only when she’d pulled her headscarf back into place did she dare turn again. Rafiq hadn’t moved, except to lay one hand on the pillar and brace upon the arm as if weary to exhaustion. “How did you know?” she asked. “That he was Adhur-Anahid, I mean?”