Kyrin glimpsed fig branches, red flags, and trickling water behind the boy who stood with his hand on the wood. There might be a bath for her and Alaina this night, and a rug. Shema might have a soft touch and a softer voice.
Ali clapped his hands loudly. Kyrin jumped. Behind her master’s litter, Tae and the Nubian lifted their heads from their low conversation.
“Inside, inside! Leave the animals.” Ali nudged Munira through the gate. Ahead of Kyrin, Tae dismounted and followed Ali within. Three beasts such as Munira would fit through the heavy portal. If it were shut and guarded, there would be no entrance or exit.
Kyrin forced her chin up and called to the Nubian, “Lilith, where does she go?”
“I take, you find later.” He pointed toward the gate. “You go now.”
She did not have to fear for Lilith, for the Nubian kept his word. Cicero whined. “Go, Cicero, follow.” With a farewell rub behind his ears, Kyrin urged him toward the Nubian and walked after Tae, hurrying to help Alaina with Ali’s things.
If she did not obey when Ali beckoned he was quick with a blow. And with his Shema watching. . . . She stepped under the pale stone of the gate arch and almost forgot his hard hand.
Flowers and shrubs filled the nooks of the court, bursting from a curving border around a long pave of crimson flags. The flags circled a pool just before her, and from an island in the middle towered a fig tree. Three slaves her height lying across the pool would span the water to its roots. Bulrushes grew near the edge, attended by lilies.
The water smelled sweet and good. A frog sprang from a lily pad, down into shifting shades of mossy green, his body a blazing yellow flame.
Kyrin let out her breath. If Ali caught her moon gazing . . .
24
Offerings
Enter the house, give it your greeting. . . . ~Matthew 10:12
Kyrin’s throat closed. The slaves of the house had gathered at the end of the colonnade along the west wing. Silent men in one line, and women in the other, ready to greet Ali Ben Aidon with peace on his way to his door. Shema was not there.
The blue thawb of the closest household man hung on his gaunt, stooped frame, bound with a red sash, but the rest of the men and women wore earth colors: cream, white, ocher, burnt orange, and brown. They were clean, even those slaves called from the fields, their callused feet, hands, and hair wet from washing. Most of the men were bareheaded, some with oiled beards.
Flower scents drifted from the veiled women. All were veiled with light material but for one in the middle of the line. By her bulk and stained brown thawb she was the cook. Her bowl-cropped pepper and salt hair hung to her shoulders. The skin of her heart-shaped face reminded Kyrin of clove spice cake. Her raisin-dark eyes were elongated by kohl above a strong nose. One of her ear lobes had been sliced away. She eyed Kyrin and her companions, her heavy eyebrows drawn together, her generous mouth tight.
What did she look for, a slave to haul wood for her hot oven? A cropped ear like hers meant accident or shame. Her short hair made shame a better guess, an old shame, since she was the cook. Those around her gave her room. Kyrin moved closer to Tae, and the Nubian passed them on his way to their master.
Ali’s trembling peacock feather in his white turban completed his blue-robed splendor. He pulled himself to his feet in his litter, and the Nubian linked his hands for his descent, his arms as gnarly muscled as oak roots. Ali stepped to the flags. After a glance around for Umar, who had not returned, he motioned the Nubian to lead the way to the house. His bodyguard straightened, smiling a little. He inclined his head toward Kyrin, and she smiled, uncertain. Why did he look like he’d won a prize?
Sandals whispered. Umar was at her side. Kyrin moved to step away but he seized her arm and shook it, his dark stare ordering her to stand still. Kyrin held as motionless as Tae on her other side.
Umar stared at the Nubian, who preceded Ali with his back straight, his head high. Ali paused and grinned as Umar’s challenging glance caught every slave in the court one by one. Except for the very old and the very young, the women bowed their veiled heads and the men’s eyes slid away from Umar’s. The cook sighed.
The gaunt man bowed to Umar. Umar’s red sash was twin to his. No one else wore the color of blood.
Kyrin’s brow furrowed. Tae stared straight ahead, expressionless. With a satisfied curve about his mouth, Umar gripped Kyrin’s arm tighter. She winced, and stilled her instinct to pull away. The burn scar had not weakened his hand.
The cook sniffed. The Nubian waited for Ali who examined his slaves closely as he passed, attentive to his master’s wish, ignoring Umar.
Kyrin gritted her teeth. Umar used her in the middle of something, the son of a hyena. Tae did nothing—so it was as well she did not. Her arm hurt, but no movement would betray her. She fingered the edge of her kaffiyeh with her free hand, wishing she could pull it across her dust-coated face and conceal herself from the eyes fastened on them.
Ali ended Umar’s skirmish of wills. “As salaam alaykum,” he cried with a broad smile, beaming around the court. His household chorused, “And with you be peace!”
In the following release of noise, Ali raised his brows at Umar, smooth as a snake uncoiling, and Umar bowed. “Your lady Shema awaits your pleasure.”
“Aahh, your words are honeyed milk to one weary from the desert.” Ali’s shoulders relaxed. He indicated Kyrin. “Let the worthless one bring in what is mine.” With a wave for the Nubian to preceed him, Ali turned toward the colonnade and the door.
The Nubian raised his arm and led the shout ringing from every throat, “The House of Ben Aidon is merciful and great!” He strode before Ali, his muscles rippling. Umar’s smile at the Nubian’s back did not go beyond his bared teeth, and he released Kyrin’s arm with a sharp twist. She refused to rub it.
The cook frowned, going over her again from head to toe. Kyrin met her gaze, raising her chin. She would not help the cook—she had burned her mother’s plum cakes. The cook’s eyes widened. Her lips thin, she glanced at Ali and then at Umar.
Kyrin clenched her fist. What did the cook guess her kaffiyeh hid? Rigid, Kyrin walked toward Ali’s bags, her jaw tight. Someday Umar would not dare touch her. Nor any who loved blood. She would conquer the ice.
She would not forget the Nubian’s kindness. She stared after him as he opened the double-leaved wood door for their master and followed him inside his house. A sigh passed over the court.
The south gate behind her was shut. The north and east sides, the buildings sharing walls, had no colonnaded porch. A door and two windows graced the large kitchen on the north end. The kitchen abutted the long east wing, where Kentar lounged in a bare doorway, his bisht over his arm. So those were the men’s quarters. After it, the wall ran south to the gate again.
In the corner formed by the men’s quarters and the wall, an olive with silver-shadowed leaves grew beside a vibrant orange tree. A carved horse head poured a stream of water into a blue-tiled basin between their mossy roots. Kyrin reached for two of Ali’s rolled rugs and paused.
Before the first pillar of the house colonnade, a young man grinned and poked his sister. Dusky hair curled against her graceful neck. She dropped her veil and wrinkled her nose at him with a grin of her own. He laughed and darted down the colonnade, into the breezeway between the house and the kitchen, and strutted out of sight around the corner.
Where he disappeared, two smaller gates rose beyond the breezeway. One must lead to the stable court. The other, Kyrin did not know where.
The girl’s mother reached after her, with a worried glance at Umar. The girl stuck out her tongue after her brother and smoothed her veil back over her face. Umar ignored her. Kyrin squashed her grin.
Here were two who were not at all afraid of Umar. Her smile fell away. The courtyard felt small, a trap. Her legs ached to run—she hungered abruptly for the sky. But the great gate�
�she looked over her shoulder and shivered. A man stood in the sun-shaft between the trees near the gate; the boy who had opened it was gone.
Umar nodded to the gate guard, and glanced at her. The man rested his hand on his dagger and inclined his head.Kyrin swallowed. There would be no place for her nomad bow here.
Ali would send a hunter who knew these hills for his meat. Maybe the brother who teased his sister had snares for rabbits, and Ali would hire him and others to catch his fleet mountain reem. She seized one of Ali’s dusty bags and opened it with a yank, as if it were an enemy she gutted. She set out her master’s slippers in a neat row.
Whispers rose behind the women’s veils. Kyrin shrugged. The cook watched her, thoughtful, and Kyrin’s back stiffened.
A slight woman in black with a blue veil whisked forward to pick up a bundle of Ali’s thawbs that Kyrin set out. Her thin, wrinkled arms held her load firmly. A sapphire glinted on her bony hand. A slave, with such a ring? Kyrin snapped her awed mouth shut. The other slaves dispersed.
At Umar’s order a man escorted Munira to grazing and others hauled Ali trade goods through the breezeway and the storeroom door opposite the kitchens. The women descended on Ali’s bags, chattering among themselves. Kyrin looked at them. Would they even listen, or understand?
Umar pointed, and Kyrin rose and followed the old woman with the ring toward the door. Kyrin gave the girl who chased away her brother a wry smile.
A leggy rosebush with yellowing, toothed leaves snagged Kyrin from the edge of the court. Limping up the steps under the colonnade, she reached down to rub her ankle, and someone bumped her from behind. The girl leaped back when Kyrin turned, and bowed her head in apology. Kyrin nodded reassurance and smiled, and stumbled inside Ali’s house. The girl somehow feared her.
The old woman slid her feet out of her sandals and dropped them at the end of a row along the wall. Kyrin brushed off her dusty feet with one hand. She liked her sandals off when she rode Lilith, at this moment they were in her bags. The old woman shook her head with a snort.
Kyrin lifted her chin. A favored concubine’s disdain could not compel her. Only her master’s word. Her mouth twisted, and she looked away from her. Lamps lit the stone room.
It was rather like Cierheld’s entryway except there were no murder holes over her head or in the walls, nothing but a long approach that would narrow an attack to two doorways, one at a right angle to the other, some distance apart. Tae would approve.
On her right the plain lintel gave onto a broad passage and many lamp-lit doorways. In front of her a heavy bas-relief arch framed high blue curtains. Did the blue conceal a west room, under the odd nub of tiled roof she had seen?
She directed her feet toward the passage after the woman, her eyes still on the thick arch. Carved reapers, gathering sheaves from a field of pale stone, shouted to her that the Eagles had been here. Or that Ali had hired an artisan to copy their work. Were there no places but men’s hearts that the Eagles’ had not conquered? No doubt Ali thought himself among those ancient masters of the known world.
The fourth doorway down on the left, the concubine stalked into a sleeping room off the passage. She laid her load of thawbs on a bed. Ali’s bed sat on a wood frame with a motif of crossed swords carved on the sides. The old woman smoothed the elegant embroidery around the neck of the top thawb, her fingers lingering.
Kyrin caught her lip between her teeth. Alaina would never rest once the women learned she had embroidered most of Ali’s thawbs. Kyrin half-smiled, but her hands trembled. There were too many people in this place. She wanted to be somewhere—anywhere—alone.
Without stifling stone shutting her up with weary fears and desperate hopes. She could not get out, she would never get out. Her throat thickened. She bowed her head and breathed deep.
The woman looked at her sharply, and Kyrin stumbled back. Her thoughts must go to the Master of the stars, her fears to be bound, her hopes to rise with a falcon’s strength.
The old woman gripped her arm and spun her about. “I am Qadira. What torments you? This is no moment to rest. Go, go, our master’s task must be finished.” With a flowing torrent of chatter, she shooed Kyrin out, past Ali’s wood paneled door, for more of his things. Kyrin stumbled out and felt she could breathe again. The sweetness of rosewater was less heavy here.
Most of the other rooms along the passage had curtains across their doorways, but there was one solid door near the entryroom, and another across from Ali’s paneled door. Was that one Shema’s?
Kyrin shivered. Her mistress must not take her from Alaina. Would Shema let them keep Cicero? And Lilith? Kyrin hugged her middle. Walk, breathe, just a few more steps. You will get out. Ali will feast. Surely he will let us rest a little before he gifts me to Shema.
She paused. A mosaic spiraled down the passage under her feet, a blue-green vine with a bird of prey at each end. More of the Eagles’ work.
Alaina approached with her arms full, and frowned at Kyrin.
Kyrin mumbled, “I must go finish,” and fled. In the court she retrieved a glazed red bottle of Ali’s frankincense and his last bag. She straightened with a grunt. The bag was heavy, grain maybe. Outside the gate with his back to it, the guard held a torch, yet unlit. The clouds closed in around the setting sun.
Someone tugged at the bag in Kyrin’s hand, and she spun. The cook lifted the bag, her eyes snapping. Kyrin sighed and released it, grateful not to carry the leaden weight. She inclined her head in cautious thanks.
The woman bore a necklet, a pair of wings with an eye between them. The eye of Horus. Without a word, the Egyptian slung the bag over her shoulder and bore it toward the kitchen.
Kyrin lagged behind the rest of the women who pressed through Ali’s door in a chattering gaggle, eyes bright above their half-veils.
The blue curtains at the end of the long entry room pulled at Kyrin. She stopped, her fingers tight on the bottle of frankincense. The women’s voices echoed in the passage.
Arab women, spineless creatures. Kyrin grimaced and slipped between the undulating curtains. The panels of silk rustled together behind her.
Under her toes was a huge blue petal of a mosaic flower. The other four gently cupped the floor around her. Kyrin stepped off the petal hurriedly. Surely such beauty was not meant for stepping on?
Blue water-stones set close together formed the petals, with stamens of glittering black gravel. On each side of the flower a row of empty rugs and cushions stretched to her right across a grey floor that shone with a slight sheen. Ten pillars supported the arched roof, while four at each end made a temple of quiet that began at her feet. The pillared walk encircled the stone floor underfoot.
Beyond the first seat of a double row of cushions running up the room, a marble hunter poised beside a small tree with lacy leaves. His bow sank in his hand as the fountain sang in his ears, the water sparkling as it left the shadows.
The stalking hunter’s brows pulled over his eyes as if he listened for an elusive call. He never moved, crouched above the sweet, low speech of water about his feet, intent. What he hunted must be worth the listening.
Gold and silver light touched the cataract as it poured over his sandals. Kyrin wanted to trail her fingers in it, touch his feet, but dared not. But for the water, all was quiet and still. Was this a place for counsel? Did Ali sit here often?
The tree raised its branches as high as the hunter’s head, reaching for the last tracery of sun-glow streaming through high, fretted windows above. The hunter’s pale body glistened, patterned with fretwork shadows that made his mouth seem to smile. Mottled green, red, and orange leaves drifted on the water. The air from the windows was storm cold, cold as snow. But this place was far from dead.
The light in the windows faded, leaving the hunter a statue. Kyrin turned away. It was but well-formed rock; her day had been long. Why then did she sigh?
She sigh
ed again and shrugged. She must go soon, in one moment more. Ali’s perfume warmed in her hands; she could smell it. What did he do here? She tiptoed past the silken cushions, away from the hunter and toward the farthest four pillars.
At the end of the bright-dyed cushions a low table rose even with her knees, opposite a great chair of black wood. Two pillars of the four flanked its carved sides and back. Her master did not leave himself unprotected, wise of him. But the pillars could hide an enemy or his guards.
Laughter came from beyond the blue curtains. Kyrin darted to a pillar. It was gritty under her fingers, and the bottle tinked against the stone. The curtains did not move. Blood beat in Kyrin’s hand against the pillar.
A warm sigh fluttered in her ear.
Kyrin spun, cracking her hand painfully on the stone. Alaina stood on tiptoes, staring past her at the statue in the dimness. “Beautiful.”
“Alaina!” Kyrin rubbed her stinging knuckles.
“Ali wants us.”
Kyrin blinked. “Does he?”
The hunter never gave up. Could he ever mistake the truth? Did the call he heard ever whisper of things not true? Would she ever see Cierheld? Her father was so far away . . . there were so many things between.
She followed Alaina back past the table, stepped around the blue flower, and slid through the curtains—to collide with a white-robed body. She jerked her head up, holding the bottle before her helplessly—she must not break it.
Umar’s jaw knotted. He cuffed her, a lightning blow to the ear. “Put that away and find the cook! You will serve our master’s table.”
Kyrin fell back, and steadied herself against the wall, her ears ringing. Umar had a thin, rolled tapestry under his arm. Orange and black, and a blazing eye. The tiger.
“You will be . . . a costly gift of the house of Ali Ben Aidon to its mistress. See that you show your worth.” He strode through the blue curtains.
Falcon Heart: Chronicle I an epic young adult fantasy series set in medieval times Page 26