Dark Empress

by S. J. A. Turney

  The young captain stared at her and she sighed, putting on her most sympathetic mask.

  “If it’s any consolation to you, I can tell you two things. One is that he died horribly. He suffered from beginning to end, and was never buried, but cast from the city walls in Akkad. His remains lay on the rocks by the sea until they were eaten by scavengers.”

  She noted a certain satisfaction settle over him. This could easily play to her advantage.

  “And secondly, it wasn’t during the civil war. He died at my hands in revenge for what he did to all of us. One of us did it, Ghassan. It wasn’t you, but it might as well have been.”

  She smiled at him as she watched a mixture of disappointment and righteous satisfaction war for control of his face. It was a lie, of course; revenge had not even figured in her motivation. She’d have been quite glad never to set eyes on M’Dahz again, but it would have been a plausible motive, had she any use for morals and nostalgia.

  “He died badly then?”

  Ghassan’s voice sounded almost pleading.

  “Very. In fact, if you wait, I have a gift for you.”

  The young captain frowned and watched as Asima unfolded her legs and wandered across to her bags. She began to mutter to herself quietly as she delved into one and produced, after much rummaging, a small purple pouch of velvet and gold. Returning to her seat, she sat once more, crossing her legs, and clicked open the catch on the pouch.

  Upending the container, she held her hand beneath to catch the two things that fell out, wrapped in silk and tied with a delicate gold ribbon.

  Her face grave and serious, Asima passed over the two small parcels, one crimson and one aquamarine. Ghassan frowned at the items in his hand.

  “Open them” Asima urged, pocketing the pouch.

  Ghassan chose the smaller of the two parcels, gently untying the ribbon and unwrapping the blue silk. He stared down at the object within the folds of shiny material. A ruby the size of his thumbnail stared back up at him, cut, shaped and immaculate, and representing more than a year’s pay for anyone on board.

  “What is this?”

  Asima smiled and there was something about the expression that Ghassan wasn’t sure he liked.

  “It’s a pommel jewel. I took it from the hilt of Ma’ahd’s sword when I’d finished removing his head with it. Call it a keepsake.”

  Ghassan stared.

  “This is worth a fortune, Asima. You might need this in Velutio.”

  She laughed, but the laugh had an edge.

  “Ghassan, you really don’t know me at all, do you? That is a bauble; a mere bead compared with some of the precious stones I liberated from their imprisonment in Akkad. I could buy this ship with one jewel, and not even the largest one.”

  Her smile vanished instantly.

  “Though I trust you will honour my wishes and keep their existence a secret?”

  Ghassan frowned at her and then nodded.

  “I think you’ll maybe like the other one more” she added.

  His frown still in evidence, the captain began to unwrap the second parcel and almost dropped the contents as they fell into his hand, causing him to lurch in surprise.

  From within the red silk, a gleaming white, fleshless bone finger pointed accusingly at Asima.

  “What?” he managed, his voice hoarse.

  “Another little souvenir. It’s his; Ma’ahd’s.”

  “You kept his finger?”

  Asima laughed and once more Ghassan was unnerved by her expression.

  “Better. I kept the whole hand for a while.” She smiled wistfully. “But I had to trim things down and travel light when I left Akkad, so I just kept a couple of fingers for luck.”

  The captain stared at his passenger and then shook his head in a mixture of disbelief and revulsion. He suddenly felt so alone. He’d been looking forward to a chance to talk with Asima; to catch up on the events of so many years and now he found that she was far from the person he remembered. She had hardened; become cold and vicious. He found himself thinking of Samir and his life of crime and murder and wondering how, of the three children that had raced across those dusty rooftops so long ago, he seemed to be the only one that had reached adulthood with a sense of morals and principles of which their parents would be proud.

  He frowned again. Asima had not flinched at the news of her father’s death. She had not brought up the subject of Samir; not even asked where he was or what he was doing. Ghassan realised with a start that any trust he had in her had evaporated in the past few minutes, and he began to feel for the unsuspecting nobles of Velutio who were about to have this calculating woman dropped upon them.

  “Ghassan?”

  He looked up and realised that Asima was watching him.

  “I’m sorry, Asima. Thank you for thinking of me, but I don’t need these gifts and, I’m afraid, I don’t really want them.”

  He turned and gestured at her with a waved hand.

  “Have you lost touch with who you were so much that your father’s death is meaningless? You’ve not even asked after Samir…”

  Asima shrugged.

  “I would have got around to it. One thing at a time, Ghassan. To do anything well, you must prioritise.”

  She stood and started to walk around the room, waving her hand to accentuate her words.

  “I am Asima, Ghassan. Maybe not Asima the poor merchant’s daughter from M’Dahz, but the lady Asima, wife of the former God-King of Pelasia, first woman of the harem and, until recently, the most powerful woman in Pelasia.”

  She pointed an accusing finger.

  “You expect me not to change in almost twenty years, Ghassan? You have changed, so why not me. I had to survive and, in the name of all that remains, I did so and I did it damned well!” Her voice had dropped to a hiss.

  “And Samir? Of course I know about Samir. That ship of his is as infamous in Pelasian waters as it is in yours. And he always did think faster than you, Ghassan. That’s why he’s still out there. How many times have you tried to corner him? How many times did you think you had him before he slipped out of your grasp like water from a leaky cup.”

  She snarled and slapped her hands down on the table.

  “I do what I must, Ghassan. So does Samir. Only you are so weak that you hide behind your flags and regulations as you flounder around, unable even to catch your brother with half the world’s military power behind you.”

  She fell silent, staring down at the table. She appeared to focus on something for a moment and then her mood changed like a sudden squall. She glanced sidelong at the stony face of the now bitterly angry captain; the target of her tirade.

  “I’m sorry, Ghassan.” She gave him a weak smile. “I’ve had a tough time and life is not very easy for me at the moment. I shouldn’t take it out on you. Forgive my harsh words.”

  Ghassan continued to glare at her as she returned her gaze to study the map on the table beneath her hands. An interesting archipelago lay between her thumbs and this, if she was reading this correctly, was looming in her near future. She turned to regard Ghassan again and the captain straightened.

  “Thank you for you time, lady Asima. I shall not disturb you again until the evening meal is prepared. Rest well.”

  Without a word, he cast the bones and the jewel onto the bunk and, turning, strode from the room, allowing the door to shut with a loud bang behind him. Asima sighed. Had she gone too far? She needed him distant, but not too distant. New plans… new plans within plans. Now where was that archipelago?

  In which Asima makes her presence felt

  Asima peered from the viewport in the side of the room. She had been alone most of the time since her ‘conversation’ with Ghassan when she came aboard, the only interruption being the delivery of her meals by one or other of the crew. Apparently the captain fell disinclined to join her to eat, but that was better for Asima anyway. It had taken around an hour and all of her considerable mental faculties to fathom the arcane naval charts
on the table, plot the distance to the archipelago, estimate the ship’s speed and therefore how long it would be until they reached the string of small islands. Having embarked on the afternoon tide, the Wind of God should pass the archipelago in the middle of the second night.

  The interminable hours alone in a small, bare room were then mostly spent irritably tutting as she went through all her packages. It had been galling enough when she left Akkad stripping so many years of her life’s acquisitions down to three large cases. Now she realised it would have to be just one, and preferably the bag, which was easily transportable. Refining what she needed and what she could realistically do without was a task of several hours on its own.

  Finally there had been the time spent listening to the orders and the heavy footsteps above and outside, peering out of the door and along the corridor to the deck when she felt she needed more information. To work out routines and schedules by sound alone was a difficult task, but Asima had achieved more during her time in the harem.

  The first night had been very informative with respect to the crew’s night time schedule. The second morning, she had braced herself and left the room, ostensibly to stretch her legs. Ghassan had glared at her when she appeared on deck and had assigned one of the oarsmen to escort her. She had made a great show of enjoying the sea air, stretching and relaxing, and had shown an interest in the workings of the ship, as she would no doubt be expected to. In fact, she was very interested, but only in certain aspects. How sails were set or oars were stored was of little value to her. Other parts…

  And then she had retired to her cabin once more to settle in for the day and finalise her plans. The hours had passed tensely for her as the naval vessel bounced lightly across the waves on its journey to the great city that was the centre of the Empire and the start of her life of imposed exile in obscurity.

  Now, the moon was bright and shining down on the water, making the waves glitter and dance, which worked both for and against her plan, but then she could hardly control the heavens. Squinting out to the horizon, she confirmed what she thought she saw a minute ago. Marked on the charts, ‘eagle rock’ was one of the standard naval navigation markers and stood at the near end of the closest island in the archipelago. She smiled to herself. Predictably, ‘eagle rock’ was identifiable from here, rising aquiline above a low spit of sand.

  That eagle marked the arrival of the archipelago and the departure of one prickly passenger.

  Hoisting the heavy bag onto her shoulder, she glanced down at the other two, open on the bed and messy and dishevelled.

  With a sigh, she tapped the hilt of the knife in her belt with her free hand and gave a last quick scan of the cabin to make sure she’d forgotten nothing. She hadn’t, of course. Asima was nothing if not thorough.

  Nodding with satisfaction, she opened the door of her cabin as quietly as she could, the faint creak going unnoticed among the many other creaks and groans of a ship under sail. It was almost midnight and most of the crew would be asleep. The oarsmen were bedded down in their temporary sleeping rolls in the flat space between the benches in the lower deck, their oars up and locked, out of the water. The ship slipped quietly through the sea, rising and falling gently, carried by a light wind, slowly but continually.

  The only crew still active on deck would be two or three of the more senior men above her current position, maintaining course and speed, lookouts in the bow and atop the mast, and two or three ordinary crewmen padding around on watch where the oar benches lay empty overnight. The only light kept aflame was at the rear where the officers worked.

  Asima peered out into the corridor from her door at the end. The rear of the ship supported what was, in essence, an extra partial deck. Most of the ship consisted of a hold in the bottom of the hull, with a deck of oar seats and ports above, and then the main deck, with two more rows of oar seats. The centre of the ship, however, boasted a raised timber castle-like structure housing the war machines, while the rear held an enclosed section of cabins with the rudder and command section atop it.

  There were only seven rooms in the covered area, five occupied by the most senior officers, one for medical use, and one for dining. Asima had been given the captain’s cabin and everyone had shuffled down a room for the duration of the voyage. She frowned at the corridor as she held her breath and listened.

  No sound came from the two nearest rooms, while the second door on the left hummed with the sound of gentle snoring. The last cabin and the sick room were silent, but the noise of laughter and activity issued from the dining hall. The door there was slightly ajar, yellow light illuminating the medical bay door opposite. There appeared to be a dice game going on within, along with a lot of drinking.

  Taking a deep breath, Asima crept as quietly and quickly as she could down the corridor. Silently, she slipped past the beam of yellow light, catching a momentary glimpse of men at the table within who were paying no attention to the corridor.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, she continued on to the end of the corridor. Pausing, she peered out through the doorway. The door itself had been jammed open with a wooden peg, allowing the warm and fresh night time air to circulate in the interior. The sounds of several dozen sleeping sailors rose noisily from the deck below, adding to the creaking and groaning of the ship. If anything, the vessel was actually noisier at night than during the day.

  For a brief moment, as she grasped the door frame and prepared to put her plan into action, Asima experienced doubt, a thing that happened so rarely it gave her pause. Was she being foolish? It was possible she could make a comfortable life in Velutio; certainly she would be a great deal more welcome there than in Pelasia or M’Dahz. Could it be that she was choosing the difficult course when she could make a life in the north?

  She shook her head, angry at her own weakness. She had no intention of living out her days in exile in a place where the wind chilled the bones and rain was a regular occurrence. And the weather was only a small part of her reasons. The Imperial capital would already be full of people who knew the local game so much better than her. She would stand precious little chance of getting close to the Emperor or his companions and she would likely end her days as some strange, foreign refugee existing on the periphery of court life.

  Ashar’s ban or not, Pelasia was the place for her. It was in her blood and in what was left of her soul. And the realisation of that in her first few hours aboard had prompted her new scheme. If three satraps; a vicious one, a greedy one and a virtual nomad, could pull off a coup that almost changed Pelasia forever, imagine what she could do. Given a malleable satrap with good connections and a sizeable estate and military, she could put him on the throne within a year; two at the most, and on his own, not as part of some triumvirate.

  And Ashar really did have to die. He’d set himself against her and, despite her earlier deluded schemes to ingratiate herself with him, it was clear when she thought about it objectively that he would have to go in order to pave the way to power. Whatever changes to her plans might be caused by unforeseeable events, one thing was certain: she had no desire of a future in the Empire. Pelasia was for her.

  Nodding to herself over the rightness of her decision, Asima ducked out of the door and turned a sharp right, around the outer lip of the deck around the cabin section toward the stern. She held her breath once more. The ledge was only a foot wide and a slip here would end in disaster.

  Slowly and carefully she edged along the ledge, watching the turbulent waters below with care. Fortunately, the cabins she had passed on this side of the ship had all been silent and apparently empty, so she had no concerns over being seen through a window. It was above her that was the problem. There would be several men on the upper deck busy keeping the ship on course.

  Very slowly, she shuffled along the ledge, occasionally feeling her foot slip and grasping the thin rail that ran around the wooden cabin housing as though her life depended upon it, which, of course, it very well could. Every tiny slip sent her thumpin
g heart into her throat and made her want to cry out, though she clenched her teeth and continued on in silence.

  A murmur of conversation made her halt and pull herself tightly against the wooden wall. Above her two men approached the railing and stood for a moment discussing something technical that completely bypassed Asima’s attention. She stood perfectly still for long moments, willing the two men away, until they appeared to reach some sort of conclusion and then wandered back to the centre of the deck.

  Asima allowed her breath to escape slowly and continued to edge round the ship, reaching the stern rapidly now. She took a peek around the corner and found that what she had seen through the window in her rear cabin was, indeed, the case. The huge rudder that was easily handled by a single man on the top deck was one enormous beam, flattened out at water level to give the strength to guide the vessel. It was attached to the stern by a hinged wooden contraption and safety rope that allowed it to pivot and move freely while remaining firmly under control.

  She had studied it for some hours through the window but had been unable to actually reach it from there, hence this night time journey around the dangerous edge of the ship. The Wind of God had been on active service for quite some time since her last sojourn in dock for maintenance, and nowhere was it showing the strain more than here.

  “I expect you have to carry a lot of spare parts?” she had asked her escort this afternoon, probing lightly, but he had informed her that they only carried bulk spares of rope, timber and sail cloth. Certainly not anything as complex as the hinged mechanism she now found herself closely examining as she closed on the rudder.