by Donald Tyson
“When did you become so religious, big brother?”
He shrugged, a slight smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
“One day I will be king. A king must set an example for his people, especially with the appointed governor of the Caliph constantly peering over his shoulder.”
We grappled, and our naked bodies slapped together. His arms about my shoulders were tight on my dry skin, so that I could not twist away from them.
“Still reading forbidden books, little brother?” he grunted in my ear. “One of these days father will have your head cut off.”
My knee blocked his thigh as he tried to sweep me from my feet. He arched his back and lifted me from the grass. I let my body go limp, and the shift of my weight forced him to renew his hold. When he relaxed momentarily, I slipped away with a spinning motion.
“The king approves of my studies.”
“Father values knowledge, but does he approve of the books in your library?” He named several texts of black magic.
“How do you know what books are in my library?”
My fury made me forgetful. He lunged and caught my leg in his hand. We fell to the grass, fighting for the upper position. Yanni spun his body deftly and covered my back, his arms around my chest. I struggled to keep my hands and knees beneath me.
“You have the favor of the king,” he hissed in my ear. “That will not save you from a charge of sorcery.”
“Why should you care what books I read?” I retorted.
“I care about the honor of my sister.”
His words chilled me like a dagger of ice through my heart. How much did he know?
With a cry, he turned me on to my back and pinned me, his arm across my throat. It began to tighten. I slapped his shoulder with my hand.
“Enough. The first fall is yours.”
Reluctantly, he let me slide from his hold and climb to my feet. My left shoulder throbbed and my left arm felt numb from the elbow to the fingertips, but I could still use my hand. I worked my fingers open and closed, eyeing him warily as he stood.
“Did you really believe no one would notice your eyes on Narisa, or that your slaves would keep silent?”
Anu. It must have been Anu. I had been discreet. My eyes never strayed to Narisa when we passed on the lawns or in the halls of the palace. Was the slave truly my property, or had he belonged to Yanni these many months he had tended to my needs? Still, he could say no more than that I had asked about the movements of Narisa.
Yanni slapped with playful brutality his cupped hands against my shoulders and head, trying to hit my ears as we circled each other. One blow could rupture the eardrum and cause deafness. I kept my shoulders hunched.
“I’ve come to warn you, necromancer. There has been talk.”
“Harem gossip.” I spat into the grass. “No man would listen to it.”
The sound of female laughter drifted from one of the windows of the east wing of the palace, where the harem was kept. I glanced across the lawn and saw the brief flash of a bright blue scarf passed through the fretwork of a shut screen and drawn back as the breeze filled it. Our wrestling match provided diversion for the royal wives and concubines. The window was too distant for our words to be overheard.
“Anyway,” I continued, “what harm would there be were I to admire Narisa? Your father could grant me a noble title.”
Anger clouded his eyes. He lunged, but his arms slipped off my sweating torso before they could lock together. I spun and grasped his waist from behind, trying to throw him. He sought to hook my leg with his ankle. I blocked him with my knee, cursing inwardly the bulk of his fat that made him too heavy to lift.
“You’re a goat herder, little brother,” he said with scorn, trying to use his elbows against my upper arms to break my hold and digging at my hands with his powerful fingers. “Do you think a proclamation granting you a noble rank can change that?”
My heart became leaden. Narisa and I so often shared the dream that a grant of noble title would enable our union, I had almost come to believe it myself. The king was liberal in his opinions, and valued both talent and learning, but the prejudice of rank ran deep. Would he even consider giving the hand of his daughter to a common herder?
Anger lent my limbs renewed strength. I lunged up and back, drawing Yanni off his feet so that he fell with me, but before we struck the lawn I twisted and gained the upper position. His body absorbed the blow, which knocked the wind from his lungs. Quickly, before he recovered, I applied a lock and held him. He struggled furiously, but soon began to tire. I could hold the lock all day and he knew it. In disgust, he slapped my arm.
“This fall goes to you. How did you turn so quickly? You writhe like a serpent. Let me up.”
We gained our feet and circled, both breathing hard and streaming sweat. He rubbed his left elbow, his eyes never leaving mine, and with a fierce exultation I knew that I had hurt him. That could be used to my advantage. I ceased circling to my left and began to move in the opposite direction, so that his weakened left arm would be exposed. Yanni saw what I was doing and turned his torso to shield his left side.
“Keep your eyes to the study of your black books and your barbaric tongues,” he muttered. “My sister is not for you.”
“She can speak her own words.”
“I like you, Abdul. For these past seven years you’ve been like a brother to me. But we are not brothers. You are a singer of songs and a maker of verses. I am the crown prince of Yemen. Do not think to tie my blood to yours through my sister.”
I could not oppose his strength or skill. My only weapon was guile.
“Narisa is a playmate of my childhood, nothing more.”
“She has become a woman, and your time of playing with her is past.”
He threw himself upon me, intending to use his sheer power to force me to my knees. Instead of resisting, I drew him to my breast and fell backward, my right foot planted in his stomach. His own weight threw him over my body as I straightened my leg, adding to his flight. He struck the gravel path with the flat of his back and slid across the stones cursing, then rolled to his side. Quickly, before he could stand, I darted after him and fastened a chokehold around his neck, forcing his face into the gravel. It was the same hold Yanni had taught me in our childhood, when he delighted to throw me across the lawn again and again until I could no longer rise to my feet.
The pink stones, though not sharp, cut his cheek and forehead. Blood streamed from his nose, and his lower lip began to swell. My forearm tightened on his thick neck. He struggled to throw me off, cursing and spitting a spray of blood from his cut lip. At last, he relaxed and slapped my arm. I tightened the hold, thinking of the many times he had used it to render me unconscious. Again he slapped my arm, and again with a frantic motion.
Reluctantly, I released him and stood quickly before he could vent his annoyance with a petty blow. Yanni got up rubbing his throat and tried to smile, but his swollen lip made the expression grotesque. He spat blood into the grass.
“You’ve gained skill since the last time we wrestled.”
“A man can improve himself.”
He laughed and gathered up his necklaces and rings. With quick, angry tugs at his white cotton thawb, he dressed and walked away without speaking.
Putting on my clothes without haste, I returned to the bower, only to find that it had lost its charms. My mind refused to interpret the Hebrew characters opened before me, so I sat pretending to read while my thoughts raced within my skull.
Yanni was correct that by the laws of Yemen, the mere possession of the book I held in my hands was death. It had never occurred to me that so foolish a law could affect me, the king’s own favorite, within the palace, but should the king himself choose to apply it, the law was grounds for my execution by decapitation. I had watched such executio
ns many times with great interest, observing how the fountain of blood sprang from the stump of the neck and the eyes rolled up so that only their whites showed in the sockets of the tumbling head, after the executioner’s sword fulfilled its fatal arc. I had no wish to play the central part in such a tragedy.
Narisa’s face arose in my imagination, playful with seduction, the countenance of a houri of paradise promising infinite delights. We loved with equally mingled passion of the flesh and purity of the heart. It was impossible to think of forsaking her. On a more pragmatic level, marriage with Narisa presented the opportunity to become a member of the royal family, which would protect my future ease and security. Who knew when the king might grow weary of my songs, and dismiss me from the palace? Marriage with his daughter would ensure that it would remain my home forever. Not even Yanni could cast me out when he ascended to the throne.
I glanced up through the leaves at the sun. The morning grew late. Narisa should have made her promenade of the garden. She was punctual in her habits. I wondered what might have delayed her, or whether she had fallen ill during the night.
Preoccupation with these thoughts made me ignore the approach of a member of the palace guard, who crossed the lawn with purposeful steps, his polished bronze breastplate gleaming in the sun and his short military sword slapping against his thigh in its sheath. Only when he stopped at the entrance to the bower did I look at him. His scarred face seemed familiar, and I realized that he was a guard of the throne room, sworn to protect the security of the king. It was unusual to see a throne room guard walking about in the garden.
“The king requests your presence, lord.”
My heart began to beat faster as my thoughts raced. Yanni must have spoken his concern over my attentions toward Narisa to his father, and the king had decided to question me about the rumor. It was the opportunity I had waited for these past months, a chance to confess my love for the princess and my desire to have her hand in marriage. I would ask the king to bless our union, and to enable it by granting me adoption into a noble family, along with a rank and title.
“Immediately, my lord.”
I became aware of my book. It was not the sort of text to leave lying around in the garden, yet neither was it a book I wished to parade before the king while asking for the hand of his daughter in marriage.
“May I return to my rooms to prepare?”
The guard’s battered features expressed no emotion. He was a veteran twice my years, granted throne room duty as a reward for his faithful service.
“You are to accompany me at once to the presence of the king.”
Sighing, I tucked the book under my arm. It was in Hebrew, after all. What chance was there that any of the courtiers in the throne room would be able to read a single word of it? True, the king’s chief advisor was a Jew, but in the mornings he occupied himself drafting state documents.
The guard kept half a step ahead, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that I followed. He did not lead me to the large and ornate throne room, where the king spent much of his day surrounded by his advisors and nobles, but to a smaller and less ostentatious audience chamber in the rear of the palace. Evidently the king did not wish to make a public display of our interview. This suited my purpose, as it would allow me to express my intentions toward Narisa without the risk of embarrassing her or the king. We could speak man to man, or son to father.
The two guards standing on either side of the audience chamber door seemed oddly tense, but I thought little of it. My mind was preoccupied with the eloquence of the speech I composed. I have always had a talent for extemporaneous composition, and concentrated on casting the words I intended to utter before the king into the most persuasive pattern I could devise. Only one chance would be offered to me to win his agreement to the union.
My escort opened the featureless and uninviting door and stood aside to let me pass. The sound of weeping came from within the chamber, which was not large, with a low tiled ceiling and a floor of plain slate. I went forward with curiosity into the dim room, wondering who wept. The guard entered after me and closed the door, then stood stiffly at attention in front of it with a grim expression, as though to bar my exit.
Broken light shone through the closed screens of three windows along the outer wall and cast geometric patterns across the slates. The only furniture was a simple wooden chair at one end of the room in which the king sat. To the left of the chair stood his principal advisor, a tall gaunt figure in black with a gray beard that hung almost to his waist, and on the right my slave Dodee, who eyed me with bright awareness. Several of the king’s personal guards were ranked at attention along each side wall, swords drawn and held at the ready.
These details I gathered from the edge of my vision, but my attention was fixed upon the pitiful figure of Narisa, who crouched on her hands and knees on the bare slates in front of the rough throne, her head hung low so that her long dark hair fell about her face and concealed it. Sobs shook her whole body.
With an effort of self-control, I resisted the urge to run to her and pull her up from the floor. Her hair dangled loose and uncombed, and she wore a simple white cotton shift of the kind a woman might wear for sleeping. Blood stained its hem. She did not look at me, but kept her head lowered.
“Here he is,” the king said in a booming voice, so unnaturally bright. “The young man who has defiled the virtue of my daughter.”
Chapter 2
Even seated as he was in an ordinary wooden chair, unburdened by his ornate robes of office and far removed from the grandeur of the gilded throne room, King Huban made an impressive figure. With back and head erect, hands resting on the carven arms of the chair, feet planted flat against the slates of the floor, his deeply lined features exuded an authority beyond contradiction. He wore a purple tunic girdled at the waist military fashion by a black sash, to raise its hem to a level just below his knees. Plain white bands embroidered the hem, cuffs, and neckline. On his head, a white turban of no great length wound around a conical cap of red felt. Black military boots with high shin guards of hard leather encased his legs.
It was said that in his youth, the king had been a great warrior. He still liked to affect military attire, although the Spartan appearance was somewhat spoiled by three lines of pearls braided across his square-cut, glossy beard, which was reddened with henna.
He motioned me forward with his finger until I stood alone in the center of the chamber, some three paces from the princess.
“You must forgive Narisa if she does not rise to greet you. She has endured a difficult night.”
Stepping nearer, I saw that the whites were visible all around the umber centers of his widely staring eyes, and the smile that stretched his cheeks had the rigor of a funeral mask. A sense of fatality crossed my heart like a shadow and stifled any impulse to protest.
“Is she injured?” I asked, my voice so subdued I was not certain he heard me.
He cocked his head and seemed to listen to the air.
“Injured? You mean the blood? No, not injured, at least not in any permanent way.”
I glared at Dodee, who seemed to find amusement in my rage. His eyes, no longer vague and wandering, met mine with insolence. Had he always been the king’s spy? I had never troubled to conceal my purposes from him, thinking him too simple-minded to comprehend them. There could be no better cloak for a traitor than the pose of an idiot.
The king muttered a few words into the ear of the bearded advisor who bent at his side, and the old Jew cast me a malignant glance from the corner of his gray eye as he listened. He wore the yellow turban that was by law the required color for his race, but his thawb was lavishly embroidered with all hues of the rainbow, its low hem trimmed with threads of gold and silver, and rings covered every finger of both his hands. Jews were numerous in Yemen. They controlled the making of jewelry and other crafts that employed precio
us metals, and their collective wealth purchased them a measure of influence with the king.
The old man walked behind the chair to a closed door and rapped once upon it. Two figures came out bearing between them a wooden table. Hoods of soft black leather covered their faces, and were tied about their necks to prevent accidental removal. Over plain gray tunics they wore tanned leather aprons bound about their chests that hung down to their ankles. With a sickness in the pit of my stomach, I saw that the aprons were stained with what appeared to be brown rust.
They placed the table at my left side, slightly in front of where I stood with trembling knees. It bore an assortment of knives, pricks, hooks, and pinchers, all made of iron. Among them was a large pair of shears. Silent as ghosts, they slipped back through the door behind the king. The stillness of the chamber was broken only by the sobs of the woman at my feet.
“Why have you done this to her?” I could not keep a note of outrage from my voice.
He raised the palm of his hand as though to still my anger.
“I have done nothing,” he said with unnatural mildness. “It is you who have done all. This morning before dawn, when the princess awoke in her bed, she complained of cramps and began to bleed. I was summoned from sleep to her bedside by the imploring of her frightened old nurse, and watched her give birth as she sat upon her chamber pot. The midwife called to treat her estimates that the fetus was some four months of age. The abomination began to mewl, lying amid the blood and urine, so I silenced it with this very hand. I instructed that my daughter be questioned, and she revealed that since the beginning of the winter just passed she has been giving her body to you for your pleasure.”
Narisa lunged forward and hugged my ankles with her arms, pressing her wet cheek against my slipper.
“Forgive me, Abdul. They forced me to tell all. At first I would not speak, but they threatened to do terrible things to me.”
I did not dare to bend and touch her head with my fingertips. The king nodded, and two guards dragged her away and flung her down on the floor in front of his chair, where she lay with her face buried in her arms.