by Judith Tarr
That, Aidan could not accustom himself to: the utter absence of women. One saw them in the street, veiled to the eyes or, if they were slaves, unveiled but returning no glances. He had not known how much he valued the presence and the voices of women in court or at table, until he was deprived of them.
They were not spoken of. A gentleman might, after sufficient preparation, speak in general and poetic terms of feminine beauty, but to his wives he never referred, save indirectly. A woman who was talked of was a woman without honor. A lady was a secret kept among kinsmen.
Aidan’s secret was sweeter and deeper than most. He drank water flavored with lemon and that essence of sweetness called sugar, and tried not to yearn for wine as for women. Good Muslims did not drink wine: as good a reason as any, to cling to his own faith.
oOo
When Ishak let drop that his friend was a Frank, Sayyida had all she could do not to gasp. A Frank. Here. In their house. Eating their food, at their table, in her father’s company. Looking and sounding and acting like a human being.
She choked down a giggle. Why should she be startled? Her family had inherited an ifritah. They should know all there was to know of entertaining devils.
Morgiana did not move, and barely breathed, until he spoke of camel drivers. Then her shoulders shook against Sayyida’s side. Laughing, surely. It was not a camel driver he sounded like. Not in the least.
Maimoun would not eat, would barely sit still, now that he knew what he ate with. Her father seemed to have accepted the inevitable; she wondered if he would tan Ishak’s hide later, for tricking him with such utter disregard for law and custom and sacred purity.
The Frank had pleasing manners, although he did occasionally forget and take his cup in his left hand. That seemed to be the hand he favored: his dagger was on the left side. Sayyida noticed such things. It went with being a swordsmith’s daughter.
Her father had taken to this man, Frank or no. When the talk turned to steel, the dull air began to glitter. Even Maimoun came out of his sulk to answer a question, and in answering it forgot to be rude.
Ishak was looking most pleased with himself.
When the discussion adjourned to the forge, Ishak excused himself to pay his respects to the harem. The others did not look as if they expected to miss him.
Sayyida looked about, startled. Morgiana was gone. She had not even felt her go.
oOo
“Well, little sister? What do you think of him?”
Ever since he grew taller than she, Ishak had called her that. She stuck out her tongue at him. “What do I think of whom? Maimoun?”
Ishak rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I know you were spying. You always are.” He poked a finger in Hasan’s belly to make him laugh, glancing up bright-eyed. “Well?”
He was unconscionably proud of this one. Sayyida almost lied and pretended to be unimpressed, simply to see him lose his temper. But there was something about this Khalid which did not welcome deception. “He’s... different. Where did you find him?”
“In the House of Justice, watching the mamluks at their exercises. He’s with the House of Ibrahim. He knows steel.”
“I gathered that,” she said dryly.
“I thought Father would like him.”
“Or be appalled by him.”
“That was Maimoun.” Ishak made a face. “Sometimes that boy can be a perfect ass.”
That boy was a good four years older than Ishak. Sayyida raised her brows and let it dawn on him.
Ishak flushed under his few proud wisps of beard. He still had a girl’s soft skin, which showed a blush to splendid effect. “Well, he is. He’s brilliant with steel, but with people he’s hopeless.”
“Not completely,” said Sayyida. “Once your friend seemed to know steel, he came round marvelously.”
“He did, at that.” Ishak wiggled Hasan’s toes for him, meeting grin with grin. “I suppose it was a bit of a shock. Sitting down to dinner with a perfectly presentable person, and finding out that he’s not only a Christian, he’s a Frank. Franks don’t eat babies, you know.”
“Did your Frank tell you that?”
“He didn’t need to. He’s remarkable, isn’t he? I’ve never met anyone like him.”
“How many Franks have you met?”
“One,” said Ishak. “He didn’t speak a word of Arabic, and from the look on his face he didn’t want to. He shoveled in his dinner with both hands. He stank like a goat.” He spread his hands. “I think this one is as unusual for a Frank as he is for one of us.”
“I think you’re babbling.” Sayyida bundled Hasan into her lap. “Morgiana was here this morning.”
She did not know why she said that. Ishak did not like Morgiana. He knew what she was: as the heir of the house, he had received that secret as his due. He spat. “That one. What did she want?”
“Company. We went out.” Ishak’s brows went up. He knew about Maimoun’s prohibition. He also thought it ridiculous. “We saw you in the bazaar. I think...” Sayyida let it dangle for a while. “I think she liked the look of your Frank.”
“Ya Allah!” Ishak had gone white. “Where is she now?”
“Gone. You know how she is.”
“I know...” Ishak gulped air. “Liked the look of him, you said? Liked the scent of his blood. She’ll eat him alive.”
Sayyida refused to let him shake her. “She doesn’t kill for pleasure. You know that. I think she’s in love.”
“That’s all you women ever think.”
“You didn’t see her,” said Sayyida. “Why shouldn’t she be in love with him. You are.”
“I don’t eat men’s livers for breakfast.”
“She’s always been good to me.”
“Well,” said Ishak. “You’re you.”
Sayyida thanked him for the compliment, which made him scowl. “Hasan likes her better than anyone else in the world. Even me. Who’s to say she wouldn’t be as gentle with a lover?”
“It’s not that, that frightens me. What if she tires of him?”
In spite of herself, Sayyida shivered. “If he’s what you say he is, he can take care of himself. Maybe she’ll never go near him at all. She’s shy.”
“Oh, yes,” muttered Ishak. “Like a tigress, she’s shy.”
“If you say anything, you’ll break your word.”
“Damn my word.” But Ishak was very quiet after that. In a little while, he kissed Sayyida, favored Hasan with one last, halfhearted smile, and left them.
oOo
Aidan was in a state of bliss. He had seen the forge. He had looked on blades of excellence beyond the dreams of western smiths. Even the toys were as deadly as they were beautiful: the little jeweled poniards which had been Maimoun’s inspiration, to catch the eye of the buyer with gold to spare. Pretty though they were, they were living blades, keen enough to draw blood from air.
But the swords were the smiths’ pride and the proof of their mastery. Farouk had but three which he would let Aidan touch, and all three bespoken: one for the caliph in Baghdad, one for the lord of Mosul, and one for an emir or Damascus. Each had its hilt and its fittings in accordance with the man who would own it; on each, with consummate skill, was graven a verse from the Koran. “To hallow it,” he said, “and to aid in the growth of its soul.”
“What,” Aidan asked, “if it were for an infidel?”
Farouk’s eyes glinted, as if he had been expecting the question. “Then the infidel would have to endure a blade with a Muslim soul. I have no power to impart any other.”
“May a Muslim soul shed Muslim blood?”
“It’s been done often enough.”
“Ah,” said Aidan, trying the balance of the emir’s blade. “This would be a tall man, as men go here, but narrow, no? Like me. And not overfond of opulence; though he likes a bit of gold in the inlay of his scabbard.”
“Yes.” Farouk looked him up and down. “You’d take a longer blade. Heavier, to go with your armor and your way of
fighting, but feather-light in the balance. Silver, I think, on the hilt, and a ruby in the pommel, for you to carve a cross in if you’re minded to profane a good Muslim blade. And in the blade, flame-patterns; a soul of fire.”
Aidan’s neck prickled. This was power, this soft, measured voice, naming him true. “What would you take, master smith, in return for such a blade?”
“Did I say that I would do it?”
“I say that you can.”
“Would you want a sword with a Muslim soul?”
“If the sword could endure a Christian hand on its hilt.”
“Does that hand belong to a swordsman?”
“Would you test it?”
Farouk nodded once. Aidan could taste his pleasure in the game. His own was rising, heady as wine.
There was a post in the yard, a lopped tree-trunk as tall as a man — a short man, as Aidan saw it. The sword which Farouk gave him was a practice blade, blunted, as heavy as a cudgel, but strangely alive in his hands. His nose twitched at the tang of iron. There was no truth in the tale that his kind could not abide cold iron, but he was aware of it as he would not be of any other metal, even steel: dark and strong, its fire buried deep but burning the hotter for that.
He raised the sword, trying its balance. It was a sullen beast. He gentled it slowly through the movements of the swordsman’s drill in Rhiyana, that done properly was like a dance. He did it properly. Faster, then, in the cadence that was indeed a dance, though it needed the skirling of the pipes to make it whole. The blade had found its balance. It would never wake to joy, but willingness, it could know. It bit stoutly into the hacked and motionless wood, caring not at all that it was not flesh and bone.
“A longer blade,” said Farouk in his cool dry voice, “yes. But not, after all, as heavy as I’d thought. Would you have a use for a sword that can thrust as well as cut?”
“Would it stand against a Frankish broadsword?”
“Stand, and thrust home.”
Aidan bowed over the hilt of the iron sword. “I defer to the master’s judgment.” He paused for a breath, two. “Will you make me a sword?”
“I will make you a sword,” said Farouk.
15.
The message was brief and to the point. The prince from Rhiyana, if it pleased his highness, would accompany the Lord of Syria on a hunt.
“I like the way he puts it,” said Aidan. “From Rhiyana. Is there no way in Arabic to say ‘the Prince of Caer Gwent’?”
“Not easily.” Joanna ran her fingers through his hair. She could never get enough of its thickness or its fineness or its ravenwing sheen. “His messengers know something of your proper title, at least. They do try to be courteous.”
He turned his head in her lap, to meet her smile with a hard stare. “You had a hand in this.”
“Do you object?”
His brows knit. “No.” He did not say it quite as if he believed it. “Mustafa is beside himself. An invitation from the sultan, all at once, and never a bribe sent or a chamberlain bought. What is the world coming to?”
“Women’s rule.” She traced the line of his cheek from brow to rigid jaw. “All I ever did was make friends with the Lady Ismat.”
“And tell her about me.”
“I hardly needed to. All the women know about you. If you were a woman and we men, you’d be a celebrated beauty.”
His blush in the lamplight was as vivid as a banner. She let her finger continue its wandering way. He caught it. “Why do you let us even pretend to rule you?”
“Something to occupy you while we contend with matters of consequence.”
He laughed unwillingly. “I wish I could scoff at you as any proper man would. That’s a curse, you know: to perceive the truth.”
“Poor love.” She slid down into his embrace. There was no urgency in it, though he would be ready if she wanted him to be. As, now, she did not. His warmth was enough. “I wish I could go on the hunt,” she said wistfully.
“You could wear a boy’s clothes.”
“Who’d be deceived?” she said. “No; now’s no time to shock the proprieties of Islam. I’ll be good and wear my veil and keep the Lady Ismat company. She listens in on councils, you know. There are rooms made for that, with rooms behind them, and hangings over the lattices between.”
“And the sultan knows?”
“Of course. He asks his wife’s advice. She’s Syrian born, and she’s been in the palace since she was a child. There’s little she doesn’t know of how this kingdom is ruled.”
He nodded slowly. “Logical. But strange. So strange...”
It took him a long while to understand why she laughed at him.
oOo
It was strange, Aidan insisted to himself as he joined the gathering at the westward gate of Damascus. No matter that he was not even a human man. He was half a Frank and all a foreigner, and dressed for it in this clear dawn, in the hunting gear of a knight in Outremer. The falcon that had come with the sultan’s invitation rode hooded on his fist, calm in the tumult. Its falconer was an easygoing man, God and the sultan be thanked: he indulged a foreigner’s eccentricity, and troubled neither bird nor prince with the intrusion of his presence.
“Sir Frank!”
Ishak’s voice was unmistakable. After a jostling moment, its owner followed it, halting his desert pony beside Aidan’s tall grey. He grinned up at the prince.
Aidan could not help but grin back. Since Farouk promised him a sword, Farouk’s son had manged to spend as much time in Aidan’s company as duty would allow. If not more, Aidan thought, replacing the grin with a frown. “Aren’t you supposed to be waiting on your lord?”
“I am,” said Ishak. “He sent me to look after you. It’s not proper you should ride unattended.”
Aidan’s throat closed. The grey gelding jibbed; the falcon bated wildly, struggling against jesses and hood. Grimly Aidan set himself to calm them both. For long hours he could almost forget; then it would smite him to the heart. Gereint; Thibaut. His own cruel folly.
The boy was beginning to be alarmed. Aidan made himself ease, though he could not smile. “I don’t suppose you had anything to do with it,” he said with creditable lightness.
“Well,” Ishak admitted, “it was supposed to be Ali. I bought him off.” He paused. “You never told me you were a prince.”
“You never asked.”
“I suppose I should be more respectful.”
“Why?”
“Your father was a king. Mine — ”
“Yours is a king of smiths.”
“I do,” said Ishak carefully,”know the proper courtesies. For one of us. I want to be sure you know that. If I had known before...”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Aidan could smile again, rap Ishak lightly on the shoulder, startle a grin out of him. “There, now. Shall we be equals?”
It was interesting to watch the boy’s thoughts play across his face. Artisan’s son and the son of a king. True believer and infidel Frank. “Equals,” Ishak agreed without excessive reluctance.
There was more than a single boy in that company, and rather more than one greeting to acknowledge: a remarkable number, in truth, once Aidan was disposed to notice. No one seemed unduly angered by his presence or his very visible Frankishness. He was a guest; what he had been or what he would be, they did not for this moment choose to consider.
Saracens did not know how to ride in ordered ranks. There were circles of precedence, centered on the emirs, that shifted and mingled apparently at will. A flurry marked the coming of the sultan. He rode with less attendance than any of his captains: a kinsman or three, his huntsmen and his falconers with their charges, a handful of his guard in their sun-colored coats. He himself was in black without mark of rank, his only distinction the golden inlay of his bridle, and the mare that wore it, a queen of queens of the line of Arabia.
His coming roused a cheer; the flash of his smile and the wave of his hand sent them all thundering through the gate.
>
oOo
The life’s blood of Damascus was its river, the cool stream of the Barada that flowed down out of the mountains, and parting manifold fed the myriad wells and cisterns of the city. The hunt rode up its course, through the orchards heavy with fruit, past the pleasure houses of princes, round gardens awash in the fragrance of roses. The horses danced, fresh and eager in the rising morning; one of the riders burst into song, and others took it up. Even Aidan, once he was sure of it. He had been proud of his endurance in the city, that he could dwell there so long and never once break and run for the open sky; but now that he was set free, he was half mad with it. It was all he could do not to set heels to the gelding’s sides and outrun them all.
Isahk anchored him. Ishak, whose every movement sparked memory of Thibaut. Ishak, who was no prey for an Assassin’s dagger, nor ever — before God — would be.
So anchored, Aidan rode well back in the company, singing when he was moved to sing, being princely pleasant to any who would speak to him. Most of the emirs, he knew. A Kurd of the sultan’s nation; a Turk keeping well away from him; a Syrian or three. Two of them were almost princes: Masud, the Lady Ismat’s brother, who looked little like his sister as Joanna had described her, a heavyset, ungraceful man afoot, but pure beauty ahorse; and Murhaf of Shaizar, the sultan’s table companion, nigh as tall and narrow as Aidan, riding with a very old man to whom he offered a degree of respect astonishing in one so haughty. The old man rode well and easily, with the air of one who has spent his life in the saddle; his back was erect, his hand steady on the rein of his mare. Not only Murhaf treated him with deference: even the sultan, falling back once, greeted him as sheikh and father, and he seemed to accept both as his due.
They hunted rather differently here than in the west: with hawk and hound, yes, but also with cats, lean spotted cheetahs that rode to the hunt on the backs of iron-nerved horses. Drummers rode before the hunters to flush the prey, whatever it might be — birds, rabbits and smaller beasts, a herd of gazelles that burst like winged things out of a thicket. Aidan barely remembered to fly his own falcon at first, for watching the cheetahs. Delicate as they were, somnolent almost to insensibility, when they were let off their mounts they transformed into the swiftest and most deadly of hunters. Whatever they were loosed at, they brought down. Sometimes they had aid: the saker hawks that would fly at anything that drew breath. The saker would strike the prey in the thickets; the prey would flee into the open; the cheetah would bring it down. Or the cheetah would spring upon it in the open spaces, and it would escape, and the saker would pursue it into the reeds. Then the hawk would come back to the lure, the cheetah to its pillion; the hawk would wait in blood-red patience to be loosed again, the cheetah would return to the sleep which seemed to be its natural state.