The Harem Master

by Megan Derr

  Kitt shook his head. "I don't—" He broke off as someone pounded on the door.

  It flew open before Ihsan could call out, and Ihsan and Emre strode into the room. "Meltem and the others are with Euren. I said we would come help you," Altan said. "What is the plan?"

  "There isn't a plan," Ihsan said as he finished stripping and pulled on more suitable clothing, tucking poisoned daggers into his dark blue sash, smaller, thinner ones into his boots, and a special hairpin through the knot into which he had bound his braid. "It's very likely they headed for the harbor, and more likely than I want to think about that they're already well out to sea."

  Altan shook his head. "I doubt it. Havarin are first class traders, and their ships are always in port for no less than three months. They can't change that either; that class of trader comes with so many regulations traders go out of their way to stay second class, where regulations are much less stringent. I find it highly unlikely that a Havarin trade ship was ready to set sail on the very day Lord Demir made an unscheduled return. Even with a couple weeks of notice that would be hard to arrange.

  "Now, they could have taken him out on a second, third, or fourth class trader vessel, but they'd have to pay out enough money to make the loss of trade revenue worth it—and the fines that could be involved, depending on the ship and the goods. It's not impossible they're already at sea, but it's far more likely they're waiting somewhere until a ship is ready to leave and they can slip out inconspicuously. People notice when ships act strangely. There's too much money involved not to notice."

  "If they're still in the city, we can find them," Kitt said as he finished pinning his hair in a flat bun at the back of his head. He twirled a pair of knives like they were toys then slid them into hidden sheaths before picking up his sword belt and buckling it into place. "I'm going to start with the places I visited the last time I had to shake people down."

  "Shake down?" Altan asked. Beside him, Emre looked equally confused.

  It was Haluk who replied, chuckling soft, "Harass them for information, though I think typically it refers to getting money out of people."

  Kitt nodded. "Money. Information. Valuable currency of any sort." He flashed a cold, sharp smile. "Time is wasting."

  Haluk buckled on his own sword and handed Ihsan's to him. "Let's go."

  Strapping his sword into place, Ihsan then led the group through the halls to the main pavilion, pulling up the dark blue wrap draped around his shoulders to form a hood. Horses were waiting for them, as well as Cenk. "I understand your reasoning, Your Majesty, but I wish you would reconsider. Lord Demir and Lord Sabah would understand that you must remain here where it's safe."

  "It's not safe," Ihsan replied. "I've said all I intend to say, Steward, but I thank you for the honesty and devotion. We'll be back as soon as possible, but if nightfall approaches and we're still searching, I'll send word. If you do not hear from me by dinner, send soldiers into the city and lock it down, harbors and all, down until I am located."

  Cenk bowed. "Yes, Majesty. Divine grant you victory and peace."

  "Divine show all of us mercy." Ihsan gripped his shoulder. "I'll bring Sabah home." He swung up into the saddle, nodded at Haluk and Emre as they took the lead. Altan rode beside him, and Kitt took up the rear.

  It took only minutes to ride into the city, and they had barely stopped the horses when the guards at the great gates let them pass, not even bothering to check their weapons though there were heavy policies regarding weapons and who could wear them when the market was open. Were all the city guards so lazy in performing their duties? Yet another problem that would have to be addressed later.

  In a small, empty patch of the crowded pavilion, they gathered together. "So what is the plan?" Haluk asked.

  "Split into two groups," Altan said. "Ihsan's group can follow Kitt's leads. I'm going to check a few of my own sources."

  Ihsan cast his brother a look. "How do you have sources in Tavala? You barely left the palace."

  "Ha!" Altan grinned. "I was meant to oversee trade for you someday, Majesty. I snuck off to my harbors all the time. After father exiled me, I just spent more time here until I came a little too close to being found out. That was when I went to see if Lady Nuray would be willing to shelter me for a time." He jerked his head toward the west edge of the city, where the larger ships could just be seen, along with the towering warehouses. Even from the front of the city, all the noise of the pavilion, the distant horns, bells, and cries of the royal harbor could be heard. "Meet at the Morning Song, on West Wine Street, at the three quarter market bell. If you figure something out before hand, send a runner to the same, we'll catch up as soon as we can."

  "We'll do the same." Ihsan held out a hand, gripped Altan's tightly, and then did the same with Emre. "Good luck."

  Altan smiled. "Go with the Divine." He turned his horse around and plunged into the crowd, Emre at his side.

  Ihsan watched them go a moment then turned to Kitt. "Where are we going first?"

  "A nasty little tavern all the way to the south edge of the harbor. I think its name is a joke I don't get: The Black Octopus."

  "What—" Ihsan bristled. "That's a lot of damn nerve."

  Kitt's mouth curved in a pleased, evil grin. "Oh, ho. Affronted royalty. Haluk?"

  Haluk chuckled, laughed harder when Ihsan glared at him. "Black is the color of royalty. I'm surprised you missed that."

  "Black signifies murder where I come from," Kitt replied. "I wear it because I'm a killer. He wears it because he's a spoiled brat. Even my brain can't always catch up."

  "Fair enough," Haluk said with another laugh. "Octopuses are extremely clever, and there are some around here prized for various reasons: food, ink, beauty. A Black Octopus is a royal who is beautiful and valuable but also extremely troublesome. In some cases, it can mean they're better off dead. I would suspect in this case, it's a little bit of both."

  Kitt snickered. Ihsan rolled his eyes. "Let's go."

  "Right." Kitt turned his horse, leading the way through the crowded city.

  The crowds thinned as they continued on, until people faded off almost entirely once they had reached the darker, dingier, dangerous parts of the city. Houses were crumbling, made more of scrounged wood and fabric used to bits of wall together than actual stone. Patched fabric also covered doors and windows. Thin, half-feral dogs slunk about, occasionally growling and snarling at each other.

  Ihsan's mouth tightened. This part of the city was meant to have been receiving help. Tavamara's treasury should not lack for funds, and he would bankrupt his council if that was what it took to restore the money that had gone missing. He'd empty his personal coffers if it came to that. Once the problems with the council were addressed out, he would make this matter Cenk's first priority.

  Kitt finally slowed as they reached a grungy end of the harbor, the streets warped and missing more cobbles than they held. All the wood was water-logged and warped, the smell of feces and sewage water thick on the air. A grimy, creaky sign bearing the words The Black Octopus hung above the door of a building that had been painted black but almost looked more green and brown from the mold growing on the damaged wood.

  "Be careful," Kitt said. "People here will kill you just because they're bored. On the rare occasion I had nothing better to do with my time, I was sent to get rid of people like this. We called it scrubbing."

  Ihsan made a face; sometimes he could not tell which part of Kitt's life was the most horrible. Rittu was, by all accounts he'd ever heard, a wonderful place. Except Kitt's, whose stories spelled out the terrible price Rittuens unwittingly paid to maintain peace and order.

  Tavamara's hands were not much cleaner. They'd gotten rid of the slavery that tainted their history, but the market had plenty of its own secrets, most of them overlooked by the crown for the sake of the money they pulled in and the others kept tightly under control, but never abolished, for the same reason.

  The Black Octopus smelled even worse than the
streets: piss and shit and unwashed bodies, alcohol and vomit and food that did not look remotely edible. The barkeep was bent over in private conversation with a pale-skinned man who looked more out of place than even Ihsan. At the sound of newcomers, the barkeep looked up. His face hardened as he saw Kitt. "I told you to stay the fuck away, gutter lizard."

  Kitt gave one of his viper smiles. "Says the gutter rat. I'm seeking any recent news about the friends I'm still looking for."

  "They ain't been here, especially since the last one I told you about wound up dead. I don't need your kind of trouble."

  Surging forward, Haluk grabbed the man by the front of his grimy, torn and stained gray shirt and dragged him over the bar. Haluk's hood fell back, revealing the carefully contained fury on his face. "We have neither the time nor the patience today. Tell us everything you know, even the most trivial detail, or you will be confessing it from the stocks."

  Kitt threw a knife as someone at the bar moved; the man shrieked, clutched at his bleeding shoulder. The other men who had been contemplating changed their minds, returned hastily to their drinks.

  "Outside," Ihsan said.

  Haluk dragged the man out, Kitt behind him and Ihsan leading the way. Outside, they dragged him into an alleyway. Kitt pressed a knife to his throat. "Has anyone been by? A foreigner? A royal guard? Anyone at all asking about obtaining passage on a ship?"

  "I don't give information for free," the man spat.

  "I'll pay for the information," Ihsan said. "But if you do not provide it right now, you will find your fine establishment closed and yourself put on a ship for a four year term."

  The man glared and spat at him. "You don't have that kind of authority. Try and close my bar, see what happens to you."

  "I have the authority of the crown," Ihsan said quietly. "Do you want to test whether or not I'm bluffing?"

  The man opened his mouth, but then snapped it shut. "You'd best pay," he said at last. "Someone stopped in two days ago, said they needed a ship that would be leaving within the next few days, not more than a week. Only two ships that plan to leave that soon: a merchant returning to Pelenna, leaves in two days; another Pelenna ship, bound for Rittu, leaves in three days. He said to secure him passage for six passengers, and I was to let him know when it was done."

  "Have you secured it?"

  "Still negotiating," the man grunted. "That's not a small passenger manifest, and it's suspicious. Never mind on Pelenna ships. You ask me they're crazy. Or desperate," he added in a mutter. "I'm supposed to meet with someone from Pelenna tonight, and then send word on their latest terms."

  "How are you sending word?"

  "Someone is supposed to be coming to get it, a clerk or something."

  "Clerk. What kind of clerk?"

  "I don't know!"

  Kitt pressed his knife harder to the man's throat. "You're lying. You were doing so well. Don't ruin it now, because like my friend said—you'll be telling us in the end, anyway. Do it for money or do it for free from the stocks. You're choice."

  "Just a clerk! A Havarin clerk! That's all I know."

  Havarin clerk. Likely from the palace. There were some in the city, but Havarin wasn't stupid enough to tangle up their market and trade clerks in this mess; that would get their trade permits revoked faster than Euren could throw a knife. Even Havarin would not so carelessly sacrifice those. What they were doing was already risky enough. So one of the missing delegates was playing messenger, and the rest of them were probably holed up somewhere else in the city.

  "Who are the Pelenna merchants you were to meet up with?"

  The man remained silently until Kitt's dagger drew a thin trail of blood across his throat. "You'd better make this worth my time because no one else is going to trust me after this."

  "Not my problem," Kitt said. "The merchants."

  "Warehouse B-9, ask for Chetkari. But you're a fool if you think he'll tell you anything, or even tolerate you asking. Anyone will tell you that Chetkari and his crew are not to be trifled with."

  Kitt laughed and stepped back. Ihsan drew out two silver coins and dropped them at the man's feet. "If you tell anyone of our questions, that money will be given to the gravers."

  The man said nothing, just stared stonily until they had walked past him before stooping to retrieve the money. Tucking it into his tunic, he slipped out of the alley and back into his bar.

  "So who is this Chetkari?" Haluk asked.

  "I don't know the name," Kitt said. "I have nothing to do with merchants unless I'm told to kill one. I only know what everyone knows: Pelenna has the world's largest and most valuable diamond mines, and they make piles of money from them, enough to be left more or less in peace by Havarin and Tavamara."

  "Many of the diamonds and other jewels in the palace are from Pelenna," Ihsan added. "We should find Altan, I think, before we go to see this Chetkari." Kitt and Haluk nodded in agreement, and almost as one they turned to head back up the street.

  They hadn't walked further than a couple of buildings when Kitt grinned and told them a dirty joke in Rittuen, a warning that they were being shadowed and trouble was likely. Haluk and Ihsan both laughed loudly, the signal they'd heard and understood.

  Only a few steps later, trouble came at them from all sides: seven goons with long knives, cudgels, and good old-fashioned lengths of broken board. Kitt got two of them immediately, knives slicing through the air, catching one in the throat, the other in the thigh. Ihsan turned around and got two more coming up behind them as Kitt and Haluk attacked the remaining one head on.

  The fight was brief and anticlimactic, a bunch of cheap street thugs that were simply no match for two well-trained elite soldiers and a master assassin. And Ihsan's daggers were coated with a unique blend, created by Kitt, of scorpion and spider venom.

  Cleaning his used daggers, Ihsan sheathed them then looked to Haluk and Kitt. "All right?"

  Kitt snorted; Haluk shrugged. "We're fine. Let's get to the meeting point before someone else comes along to try and waylay us." They pressed on, Haluk hanging slightly back and Kitt overtaking the lead, keeping Ihsan protectively between them.

  When they reached the Morning Song, Haluk slipped away to locate a runner. Kitt guided Ihsan to the back of the room to a corner table. "I thought you disliked corners," Ihsan said but gladly took a seat, tired and in pain, fear for Sabah and Demir and impatience over every delay acerbating everything.

  "I'll take a corner when it means I can see the whole room," Kitt said. "Anyone tries to trap us here, they'll regret it quickly. Here." He held out a small glass jar, tightly sealed, a pair of leather gloves, and a small, soft cloth.

  "Thank you, Kitt." Leaning across the table, Ihsan kissed him, quick but hard. Settling back in his seat, he drew out his used daggers and set them on the table, then pulled on the gloves, opened the glass jar, and carefully began to recoat the daggers in poison.

  When it was done, he set them aside to dry. Kitt picked up the jar with a fresh pair of gloves and resealed it, then threw their gloves and the cloth in the small fire burning in a nearby stove.

  Haluk returned just as Kitt sat down again and slid across the booth against the wall to sit next to Ihsan. "I sent someone to find Altan. Your brother has quite the reputation around the city, though nobody seems to be aware that he is royalty."

  "I cannot say I am surprised," Ihsan said with a smile. "Living right under my father's nose, building a reputation for himself, thriving in exile—that is the very essence of Altan. He would not be a good king, but he is an excellent prince. My father was a fool to throw him and Zehra out."

  "Well, he was a fool for not giving you reason to stay," Haluk replied. "It makes sense he would be equally stupid about all of you."

  Ihsan shrugged, covered Haluk's hand with one of his own, and reached out his other to take Kitt's. "If he had kept me in the palace, we would not be together now, and I cannot bear to think of life without any of you. Once Sabah is back, we will be whole again." They b
oth gave him a look but said nothing. "I will not make presumptions regarding Lord Demir. I'm sure he cannot wait to see the last of us."

  "You're an idiot," Kitt said. "If Demir was eager to be rid of us he would not have returned."

  Haluk's mouth quirked. "I hate to agree with the little dragon, but he is correct."

  "Speaking of you and Demir, you have yet to tell us how you spent your time away protecting him," Kitt replied.

  Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, Haluk replied, "Not fucking him. I would never do such a thing away from the rest of you, and Lord Demir is far too honorable to have accepted any offer I might have made, anyway. You both must know that."

  "I wanted only for you both to be happy," Ihsan said quietly.

  Haluk leaned in and pushed back Ihsan's hood just enough to kiss him, soft and lingering, leaving an ache behind. Ihsan wanted to pull him close, kiss him until his own lips were left bruised and throbbing, until he was able to taste Haluk long after the kiss had ended. He desperately wanted to have the time to drag all of them to bed, hear every sweet, hungry sound he knew they could make. Reassure himself over and over that they were all safe, with him forever, and all the violence was finally at a damned end.

  Once they had Demir and Sabah back, he would be more than happy to never leave the palace again.

  Kitt squeezed his hand, lifted it to kiss his fingers. "We'll get them back, and soon. No one escapes when the Dragon casts His Shadow."

  "Just leave one or two alive for purposes of information," Ihsan replied. Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he looked up to see Emre and Altan walking toward them, faces set in grim lines. Ihsan rose. "What's wrong?"

  "My inquiries tells me we're going to be dealing with a man by the name of Chetkari, that's what's wrong," Altan said. "The only thing nastier than a slave smuggler is a diamond smuggler."

  "Well at least that confirms the barkeep did not lie, for he told us the same name." Ihsan sighed and resumed his seat, motioning the others to do the same. "I am surprised we've not heard Pelenna mentioned sooner if they're tangled up in this."