The Harem Master

by Megan Derr

  Sabah huffed. "It is the dead of night and we're all tired, stop discussing matters that can wait. You wanted to talk to De—Lord Demir, not bore him to death."

  "I am honored to be trusted with my king's worries," Demir replied. "I will continue to help however I can."

  "Your devotion humbles all of us, Lord Demir," Ihsan said quietly. "I certainly do not merit it, and am eternally grateful you give it anyway. Thank you for indulging my selfish wants and coming to see me tonight."

  Demir bowed his head, wishing his stupid heart would keep to a proper pace. That it did not hurt to breathe, that longing and bitter reality did not leave him bleeding. "It is an honor to serve, Majesty, always. I will leave you to your rest, and Merciful Divine grant you a speedy recovery."

  "Goodnight," Ihsan said softly.

  "Goodnight, Majesty."

  "I'll walk back with you," Sabah said, standing with him and following him out.

  What had he expected? To be asked to stay? Whatever Sabah had told him in the hall, words that continued to worry the edges of his mind like a tongue worried a toothache, Ihsan had his harem back. It was only a matter of formality that prevented the royal harems being official again, and once the council's doings were revealed, nobody would protest.

  Once the dust settled, no one would need him anymore. The Harem Masters of Tavamara would join the history books once and for all, fade from memory, as would he as the palace resumed its regular rhythms and adjusted to new ones.

  Soon, no one would notice his absence at all.

  "Are you all right, Lord Demir?" Sabah asked.

  Demir nodded. "I'm fine."

  Sabah gently grabbed his arm, forced him to halt, then let go. He peered up at Demir, seeing far too much. "I don't think you are. I think you are either oblivious or refusing to see."

  "See what?" Demir asked.

  Heaving a sigh, Sabah asked, "Would you permit me an impertinence, Lord Demir?"

  Too bemused and frustrated to refuse, Demir sighed and said, "Yes."

  Sabah reached up, fingers ghosting over Demir's cheek, then pushed gently into his hair, curled into it, and drew Demir's head down. Demir's breath hitched as realization dawned, but his thoughts scattered as Sabah kissed him, brief and whisper soft. Drawing back the barest bit, Sabah said, "We missed you."

  "I don't…" Demir drew back a bit more, stared at him. "You cannot mean—" He broke off as something slapped over his mouth in the very moment he saw someone come up behind Sabah to do the same.

  A sharp, stinging sensation came from the back of his neck, followed by a wash of wooziness right before the dark came crashing down.

  Seventeen

  "If you try to make me stay in bed one more day, I—"

  "All right," Kitt conceded sourly, raking his hands through his sleep-mussed hair, an expression on his face that could only be described as petulant. "But you'd better stay where I put you."

  "Where I put me, thank you," Ihsan retorted but nodded. Anything was better than lying in bed day after day after day. He'd done that already: trapped in his bed for countless hours, listening to the agony around him, to men screaming words that Ihsan hadn't understood, though the desperation and anguish in them was clear enough. The Lavarrien healers had mostly been apathetic about prisoner care, and even the kind ones had been so only by comparison.

  And all Ihsan had been able to do was lie there, drowning in his own pain and the misery of the whole, all of it coated by sand and dust, sweltering heat and freezing cold. Every day he lingered in his bed, even if it was in the middle of the royal palace, brought those memories closer and closer to the surface. He could not take one more day; he would lose his mind.

  More importantly, people needed to see him up and walking around, needed to know he was capable. Euren was doing magnificently and hardly needed his help, but the presence of Queen and King would do much to calm and reassure people.

  Kitt and Haluk helped him prepare, dressing him in form-fitting slate gray pants, a black, knee-length skirt, a black shirt, and gray sleeves trimmed in interlocking black, silver, and dark gray triangles. Haluk bound his hair in a simple braid, which he tied off with a dark gray ribbon. "Where is Sabah?" Ihsan asked. "I thought he would be joining us for breakfast."

  He'd also secretly hoped that Sabah would convince Demir to join them. It wasn't much of a breakfast, was in fact going to be a long, tedious, frustrating one, but he had hoped all the same.

  Not surprising he wasn't, though. Certainly not unexpected. Demir probably had a new, vastly more promising life waiting for him as soon as he rid himself of the palace once and for all. That Ihsan had no idea what that life could be, could not follow Demir's thoughts as he could those of Euren, Kitt, Haluk, and Sabah… However much he cared for Demir, they had not known each other very long, and a man like Demir had no reason to settle for an ugly, fragile king whose family had long brought Demir only ill.

  "They'll probably meet us there, stop fretting yourself to death," Haluk said gruffly. "I'm sure they're busy with the concubines. There is a lot of work to do; the council wasted no time hauling in two hundred prospective concubines, and that is a lot of people to take care of, especially in the wake of so much upheaval."

  "Nevermind the chaotic state of the palace," Kitt added, shaking out his skirt, then combing back his hair and binding it into a loose knot at the base of his neck. "Anyway, the meeting is not for nearly an hour; there's still time for them to show."

  "I could—" Haluk broke off as a knock came at the door. Striding across the room, he pulled the door open—then smiled and opened it wider. "Good morning, Your Highness, Lord Emre."

  "Good morning."

  Ihsan's head turned sharply toward that voice, smile overtaking his frown as he crossed the room to embrace Altan. "I feared I would never see you again, brother." He clung tightly, his brother's form familiar and strange all at once. "You are a happy sight."

  "It's good to be back and to have you home," Altan said gruffly, slowly pulling away. His eyes fell to Ihsan's neck. "I heard this reunion almost did not happen. I am not surprised you're more stubborn than a knife." He reached out, prodded at a couple of the scars on Ihsan's face. "Looks like you're more stubborn than a lot of knives. I know you've always been jealous that you're not as pretty as me, big brother, but I think this was the wrong way to deal with the problem."

  "Be quiet," Ihsan said with a laugh. "Even uglier than you I'm still more likeable."

  Altan grinned and lightly smacked the side of his face. "So am I welcome back to Tavamara and the royal family, brother?"

  "You know you are. Stop being an ass, or I'll reinstate that exile." Ihsan hugged him again, then turned and embraced Emre. "Thank you, brother in the sands, for all you and yours have done. Whatever debt you thought owed is long since repaid, and I am fairly certain I am back in your debt."

  "We're honored to help," Emre said. "All your troubles still do not equal what we face in the Desert every day of our lives. Are you healing well?"

  "Yes, thanks to the swift work of Kitt and the royal healer." Ihsan squeezed Kitt's arm when he tried to protest his part for the hundredth time. Still looking at Emre, he said, "Hopefully once we've dealt with the ambassadors and councilors, this place will quiet down and we can finally give you a proper banquet. I am told Euren is waiting impatiently for a chance to test her knife throwing skills against Lady Meltem."

  Emre grinned. "Knife throwing, is that what they call it now?"

  Altan sniggered. Ihsan chuckled as Kitt leered and Haluk rolled his eyes. Turing to Altan, Ihsan said, "I have to go to work before Euren finishes the assassin's job, and I am sure you have plenty to catch up on, but we can do lunch or dinner together? Emre and the rest of Cobra can join us, Euren may yet get her knife throwing in, and the rest of us can make inappropriate jokes about knives and thrusting." He clapped Altan on the shoulder, then Emre, before gesturing for Haluk and Kitt to follow him, the other two close behind.

  The groups pa
rted ways at the end of the hall, Altan venturing off to more public sections of the palace, Ihsan and his harem heading to the private dining room where the meeting with the ambassadors was to take place. When they reached it, only Euren and Cenk were present. Ihsan frowned. That wasn't like Sabah or Demir. He turned to look at Haluk, who nodded before Ihsan spoke and bowed himself back out of the room.

  Pushing aside worries that were likely groundless, Ihsan took his seat next to Euren, leaning in to kiss her briefly. She frowned as she drew back. "Are you certain you should be up and about?"

  "I've gotten up much sooner after much worse."

  "That's nowhere near as reassuring as you think it is," Euren replied. "Do try to avoid further injury."

  "We can't all be warrior queens who slay assassins without ever leaving our beds," Ihsan replied with a smile.

  Next to Euren, Asli smiled, glancing at Ihsan. "I still maintain we should have gone to fight Lavarre, and you should have stayed in the monastery."

  From the far end of the table, Cenk chuckled, eyes still on the papers he was looking over in preparation for the pending meeting. "Legally speaking, that would have been the better recourse, as His Majesty is the blood heir. However, I think perhaps it is all to the good that our queen was kept well away from His Majesty’s affinity for trouble."

  Ihsan made a face. "I went to war so Euren wouldn’t decide it was all entirely too easy and she should just take over the whole continent for sport," Ihsan replied, then grunted, clapping a hand protectively over the ear that Euren had flicked. "Deny it, woman."

  Euren sniffed. "I do deny it, in fact. Who wants that much work? Havarin? Not an example I am keen to follow."

  Ihsan, Cenk, and Kitt all laughed, and they all settled to eating breakfast while they waited for Haluk to return with the others.

  Several minutes later, though, the door was thrown open by a frantic looking Haluk. "They're gone."

  "What—?" Ihsan stood up so quickly he knocked the table and sent tea splashing everywhere. "What do you mean?"

  "According to Ruth, they never returned to the harem hall last night. They must have been grabbed in one of the hallways. I went to Captain Fatih first; he is searching for any clue as to who might have taken them."

  "That would take extensive knowledge of the palace," Euren said, echoing Ihsan's thoughts—and to judge by their faces, the thoughts of everyone else in the room. "Not just anyone can smuggle two men—two well-known men—out of the palace without raising alarm."

  Kitt slammed a fist on the table, voice cracking out. "They left Ihsan's chamber eight hours ago. They could be anywhere!"

  Ihsan moved around the table. "I want all the ambassadors arrested, as well as the rest of their parties. Gather them in the minor courtroom. I've had enough of this." He turned his head, wincing at the pull on his wound. Haluk's hands fell heavy on his shoulders before he was tugged gently off to the side as Cenk and the others stood. Ihsan closed his eyes, bit his lip to hold back a scream.

  Eight hours. They could be anywhere. Dead. In the city. On the road. On a ship.

  He couldn't breathe. Couldn't see past the terror, the memory of waking up in an unfamiliar place, everyone gone, possibly dead. That last battle had turned into a nightmare, and the last thing he'd remembered was Haluk screaming his name right before the bomb went off and left him, literally and figuratively, in tatters. Waking up in agonizing pain in a place where the healers were his enemy, uncertain if he would live or see his lovers ever again… And now Sabah was gone, so too Demir. Lost to some nightmare likely far worse than his own because he'd been so wrapped up in his own selfish worries he hadn't seen to it they were protected.

  "Ihsan!" Haluk's voice broke through the wall of panic and fear, but only barely. "Ihsan, breathe. Listen to my breathing, breathe with me."

  Bit by slow, agonizing bit, Ihsan's sanity returned. Haluk hugged him tightly, murmuring soft, nonsensical reassures in his ear. Kitt's arms wrapped around him from behind. "Sorry," Ihsan muttered.

  "Be quiet," Kitt snapped. "We've told you before not to apologize for that." He and Haluk drew back as Euren reached them.

  Ihsan bent to kiss her, covered the hand she rested against his chest with his, and smiled at her pensive, worried look. "I'm fine."

  "You're a liar," Euren retorted, but then let the matter drop. "Come on, let's go see what the ambassadors have to say for themselves. Hopefully someone will confess."

  Ihsan bit back the retort he wanted to voice: that he would remove their heads if they didn't and worry about making amends later. It smacked too much of his father, and he refused to behave that way, even in empty threats.

  "Have some more tea and food while we wait for the guards to do their work," Euren said, and led him back to the table. "I have no doubt my father is tearing this place apart to figure out what happened. We'll get Sabah and Demir back."

  Every bite of food was like swallowing a stone, but Ihsan forced it down as the minutes passed by with maddening slowness. By the time a guard arrived to tell them the prisoners had been gathered he was ready to scream. Finishing his tea, but only because of the looks he was being given, Ihsan rose and walked with Euren as they left the room.

  Their harems walked beside and behind them, and Ihsan was eternally grateful to the Divine that they were there. The guards surrounded the whole group as they walked through the halls of the palace to one of the smallest of the several court rooms.

  When they arrived the room was empty, but a moment later the doors flew open and Captain Fatih strode in. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "Majesties, it is to my great shame that I must report unhappy news: two of my guards were bribed into kidnapping Lord Sabah and Lord Demir and smuggling them out of the palace along with the Havarin delegates. I've sent men into the city to learn what they can and ordered more to the roads to see if we cannot find them there."

  He broke off as the doors opened again and guards entered hauling two guards stripped of most of their uniform, their faces badly bruised. One had a bleeding lip, the other an eye swollen shut. They flinched when Fatih looked at them.

  Ihsan glanced at the captured guards, then Fatih. "These are the men who sold Sabah and Demir into slavery?"

  "Yes, Your Majesty. I offer my most humble apologies for the betrayal of the royal guard. I leave their punishment to you, of course."

  "You do not owe us apologies," Ihsan said quietly. "You cannot know the minds of every man in your charge. It is they who owe apologies." He looked at the men again. "Explain to me why you were willing to sell Lord Sabah and the Harem Master to a life of sexual slavery. Why do you dishonor yourselves, your king and queen, and you country with such repulsive behavior?"

  "We didn't know that's what they would do—" The first man, with the split lip, broke off and looked down, voice choking with tears. "I needed the money. They promised they wouldn't hurt them, just wanted them to make a point and then would return them."

  "You're a fool," Fatih snarled. "Your job is to follow orders and protect the crown and the people of the palace at all costs. The moment you were approached you should have come to me, not accepted money like craven dogs."

  "Not only that," Euren added coldly. "You have jeopardized plans to right many of the wrongs that have been committed of late. You have not only allowed the worst sort of criminal to escape, you have given them two more victims. You deserve to have your heads removed."

  Both men looked ill, and the man with the split lip began to cry. The other one remained stone-faced. Ihsan cut the air with a sharp jerk of his hand. "Execution is too easy a sentence. Captain, put them on a ship, contracted to work for two years, one each for the men they've harmed today. Upon completion of their service, they are not welcome in Tavala or the royal palace for another three years."

  "Yes, Your Majesty," Fatih replied.

  Ihsan regarded the two men. "Your sentence may be lightened if you can provide useful information as to where to find them," Ihsan said. "Where did
you take the Havarins and my men after you smuggled them out of the palace? How did you smuggle them out?"

  "We used the pipe rooms beneath the palace," the split lip guard replied. "There are ways in and out if you know who to bribe."

  Ihsan wanted to hit something. Yet another problem that would be addressed as soon as possible. He glanced at Fatih, who gave a short nod.

  "Where did you go after that?"

  "We didn't," said the second guard, voice curt but with the barest bit of tremble to it. "We got them outside and to the base of the hill; after that the Havarins paid us and left on their own. But I heard them talking about a ship. Don't know how true it was. They seem the type to make sure they were overheard."

  Ihsan dismissed them with a jerk of his head, and the guards who'd brought them in hauled them away again.

  Fatih bowed. "I'll send more men to the harbors."

  "I'm going," Ihsan said flatly.

  Cenk stepped forward, shaking his head back and forth. "You can't. You're the king; you do not leave the palace. Especially now when everything is so tenuous and you're still recovering—"

  "I am not going to remain here safe and sound while Sabah and Demir are out there!" Ihsan bellowed, making Cenk and the remaining guards recoil. "Demir came back because he is unfailingly loyal. I will not repay that faith by standing here and doing nothing while his life is in jeopardy. Sabah once threw his life away to stand with me. I'll not leave him alone now."

  No one replied, save Euren, who stepped in close and dragged him down into a long, heated kiss. Drawing back, she tugged lightly at loose strands of his hair. "Be careful, come home. We cannot afford to lose another king, and I certainly could not bear to lose you."

  "I will, beloved," Ihsan replied and kissed her again before withdrawing. He looked to Haluk and Kitt, who silently followed him from the room, quiet all the way through the halls back to his chambers. "Kitt, where should we start looking? We cannot search the whole of the harbor. There are miles of them, and even keeping exclusively to Havarin ships, there are too many to cover."