I had gone missing on the way,
stopped to think I seemed to be,
hints of promise waiting yet.
She leaned forward to take the book from his hands. Steps Along the Feyassin’s Road. She had written it only a year ago. “I’d no idea there was a copy here.”
“There isn’t, Pah-Mariam. It’s mine.”
Mari looked at him with raised eyebrows. Clearly Armal’s still waters ran deeper than she suspected. He had shown compassion, even sorrow, at some of the things he had heard their respective parents speak about. If she could rely on his compassionate nature, he might well be the ally she needed.
“Armal, may I ask you something in confidence?”
“Of course.” Not a moment of hesitation in his voice. Using his affection seemed dishonest, yet what choice did she have?
“The work you and your father do for my family,” she said tentatively. “Is it something you’re entirely comfortable with?”
He dropped his gaze to his lap. For a moment he wrung his hands as some inner debate raged. Without raising his head, Armal replied, “It’s not my place to question what the Great House of Erebus wants of me. I’m your father’s loyal man. My family has proudly served yours for generations.”
Mari leaned forward to rest both her hands on Armal’s leg. She heard his sharp intake of breath, yet the giant did not back away. She took another gamble. “I don’t question your loyalty, Armal. You spent four years in Maladûr gaol because of what our fathers had you do. You were lucky enough to be pardoned, but you know such good fortune will only come once.” With one firm hand she reached out to touch his chin. Armal raised his head to look her in the eye.
“In confidence?” he whispered. Mari nodded her encouragement. “There’re some things that make me uneasy. Things that give me trouble sleeping. I do them because I’m expected to. To speak of these things might get me, or both of us, killed. My father…your father—”
“I want to help my father, Armal, before he goes too far. If my father falls, so do we all.”
“Please, I need to think—”
“You don’t need to say anything you don’t feel comfortable saying, Armal. These are dangerous times for us all. My father is ill, Armal. Though I love him, we’re not always of the same mind.” Mari leaned forward conspiratorially. “Allies can sometimes be found in the most unlikely of places. Know that if you ever need to speak to anybody, I’ll always listen. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Armal?”
She looked about, as if ensuring they were not being watched. Mari needed to push him further. “I know what’s going on, Armal. I can help you.”
The man gasped in surprise. He avoided her gaze as he nodded his large head, eyes fixed on the closed book in his lap, where Mari’s name was stamped in plain, precise letters.
It had been a long time since she had the time to pursue art, something the warrior-poets prized as an alternative to their lives of physicality and violence. At the Lament, her teachers had encouraged all their students to remember that being a warrior-poet was a path to enlightenment. Theirs was a sacred calling of the one, who strove for the perfection of body, mind, and spirit, to protect the many.
She took up her old leather folio. Some of its sheets featured sketches, many only half-complete. Rough outlines of life study, simple charcoal lines with neither shade nor texture. The halfhearted efforts of a dilettante with other things on her mind. But the few finished pieces hinted at some promise in her as an artist: the watercolor of a chrysanthemum; a brightly colored lizard on terra-cotta tiles; the faces and bodies of women and men she had loved, her way of immortalizing the few among the many.
It was a blank sheet she worked on now. High cheekbones. A tangle of dark hair. A long jaw. Delicate eyebrows, unusually so for a man, and a small mole on the left temple. In the flickering light of the candles and oil lamps, his face came somewhat to life. Except for the eyes, which she had not the skill to do justice. They remained blank, lifeless in the otherwise complete portrait.
She stared at the portrait, ran gentle fingertips over it. Indris was out there somewhere. There were so many rumors about him. About his years as a commander of the Immortal Companions. About how he had volunteered to fight behind enemy lines to rescue others, then been captured and spent years bound in slave pits. About how his wife had died of her longing for him. Yet what to believe? Both fame and infamy often grew in the telling.
Hungry, Mari went to the kitchens. By the time she got there, they were mostly empty. The cooks eyed her obliquely as she picked out some choice morsels of leftover food. She filled an ewer with more water than wine to take with her.
When she returned to her room, she could not miss the massive man who stood, obvious as a mountain, directly under a hanging lantern outside her door. Mari slowed as she approached, intrigued as to why Armal had chosen such a late hour, though more so why he had come to her chambers. The guards on duty kept their eyes forward, yet their expressions did not fool Mari. There would be talk.
“Good evening, Pah-Mariam—”
“What are you doing here, Armal?” she asked brusquely. The man’s expression crumpled. As much as it pained her, she needed to drive him off for both their sakes.
“My apologies,” he said quietly. He bowed his head, so as not to seem forward enough to look her in the eye. “I wanted to express my thanks and return this to you. I found the landscapes of Amnon, particularly the Awakened Empire houses in the Artisan’s Quarter, quite beautiful. I see why you were interested in them. My apologies for the inappropriate hour. I should’ve waited until morning.”
Mari put her food and drink down on a hallway table. Armal held a book out in both large hands. She had never seen it before. She flicked through a few pages of oil paintings, though most were sketches done as intaglio prints on cloth sheets. Between two pages was a narrow piece of paper. Mari quickly turned more pages, ultimately closing the book to place it beside her plate.
“It’s late and I’m tired.” She opened the door to her room, then took up the tray and book. “I didn’t expect company. Thanks for bringing this back.”
“My pleasure.” Armal bowed before turning on his heel to walk with his long strides down the corridor. The guards tracked him as he left. Mari only hoped there would be no embellishments of Armal’s visit. She knew as much as anybody how much soldiers loved to talk, particularly if there was something scandalous involved. Mari already had enough mud on her name without adding a completely fictitious tryst.
She closed the door behind her, then hurriedly found the page Armal had marked. In careful, almost childlike letters, the man had written “three” and “seventeen.” Mari frowned. The page showed an illustration of a many-storied house with tall keyhole windows and what seemed to be a tiled frontage. There were balconies on each level, hidden behind climbing plants and fretwork screens. People in traditional Shrīanese knee-length coats and wide-legged trousers were caught forever midstride, their shadows fragmented in the weave of the cloth. There were awnings at ground level, to shelter customers, stalls, and wares from the sun. The print was of Treadstone Street and the famous Ghyle, the markets of Amnon that bordered the Artisan and Mercantile Quarters in the Old Town.
Mari took the slip of paper in her hand. Three, seventeen. She looked at the tile-fronted house.
What was at level three, number seventeen Treadstone Street that Armal wanted Mari to see?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“It is believed patriotism is a fine characteristic. It highlights our nobility and integrity in equal measure. What then do we feel, when patriotism is no more than a mask for hatred and blind ambition?”—from The Growth and Death of the Petal Empire, by Arimandones, Sēq Scholar to the Great House of Sûn, 981st Year of the Awakened Empire
Day 322 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
As he entered his office, Corajidin saw Yashamin leaned back in her chair, long legs propped on his desk. The desk was littered with petitions, let
ters from creditors, supply manifests for the army, cluttered ledgers. Silver-handled brushes lay beside a large, near-empty ink pot. Her fingertips were stained black with ink. Yashamin’s light robe had come undone in the heat, revealing the temptations of light and shadow, the texture and shape of her sweat-sheened skin. Her damp hair was stuck in ringlets to her unlined brow. Across the planes of her high cheekbones. Her long neck. She drew on a small pipe. The narcotic cloud that hung about her gave Corajidin a slight headache.
Cicadas droned in the lazy morning, almost louder than the bright splash of the alabaster fountain in the courtyard below. The pain in his belly and muscles was dulled for now, thanks to ever-increasing doses of lotus milk.
Corajidin dropped the latest reports from his senior officers on the table. Yashamin smiled indulgently at him, exhaled slowly. A pool of oily smoke, so thick it seemed near solid, dripped from her lips in pale streams before it rose lazily into the air. Corajidin felt a distant stirring in his loins. “You need distraction, love.” She shrugged and her robe hung precariously from her shoulders. “Lose yourself in me for a while, then sleep. I’ll sort through what needs your attention and what can wait. The world will still be here when you wake.”
There came a light rap on the door. Yashamin shrugged again, a lift of her shoulders that loosened the fall of her silk robe even farther. She raised an eyebrow, daring him to answer the door when she sat there, free for the taking.
Another knock, louder this time. Corajidin stifled a growl and bade the person enter, his fingers curled around the hilt of the long-knife given him by Vashne.
Farouk entered the room, garbed as always in the somber black and red of his armor. Corajidin wondered whether the man slept in it. Farouk made the Third Obeisance, kneeling with brow pressed to the floor, palms turned upward. He remained there for a count of heartbeats before climbing to his feet. Farouk remembered sende when he had something important to say.
The most powerful man in Shrīan stared at his aide. “Farouk?”
“My rahn,” he said plainly. “You asked me to keep watch on Pah-Mariamejeh’s activities. You also wanted to know, as soon as feasible, whether Armal attempted to contact her.”
“I remember my own cursed orders!” Corajidin snapped. He regretted his tone as soon as the words left his mouth. He was so tired.
“Your daughter was seen in Armal’s company twice yesterday. The first time she sought him out at the library, where they engaged in conversation. There was some touching—”
“Armal laid hands on my daughter?”
Farouk hesitated a moment before he continued, “It was she who was the forward one.”
“And the second time?” His voice sounded more distant than he intended. He found he was clutching the long-knife so tightly his fingernails were digging into his palm.
“Last night, outside her chambers. I’ve no more information than that.”
Corajidin walked to the open doors that led out to the balcony. The breeze cooled the sweat on his chest and brow. His vision blurred, and he had to steady himself against the railing until the moment passed. He could taste vomit on the back of his tongue.
“Armal must be sent away, Farouk.” Corajidin kept his back to the others. “As distant a posting as you can find. Nowhere too dangerous though. Somewhere where he will be useful but out of harm’s way. Arrange it as soon as you can.”
“I live to serve.” Corajidin heard the man rise to his feet, then walk to the door. There was a soft click as it closed behind him.
Corajidin heard the whisper of bare feet on polished wood. A sibilant hiss as Yashamin’s experienced fingers slid his robe off, letting it fall around his ankles. The warmth of an arm around his torso. A hand, assured, accomplished, certain, on his manhood. Corajidin felt Yashamin melt into him, her breasts pressed into his back.
“Do you trust Farouk not to exceed his authority?” she murmured into his shoulder. Her voice vibrated against his skin. “He’s no love for Armal.”
“Farouk knows his place, love. He will behave.”
“I hope so. What of Thufan?” she murmured, her hand moving him from anger to a desperate desire.
“He will thank me.” Corajidin turned in her arms, though she never lost touch with him. His mouth found hers, moist, inviting, hungry. Her lips full and soft under his.
Yashamin led him, at once mistress and slave, to the couch by the desk.
Morning had gone. Corajidin reclined at his desk, too distracted to work. A headache throbbed at the edge of true pain, due in equal parts to his hangover, Yashamin’s narcotic smoke, and the infirmity of the sickness that pooled in him like fetid water in a rusted basin. The gentle breeze from the overhead fan was soporific, the waves of cool air on his skin comforting. Through the open window the cries of gulls, the rattle of carriage wheels, and the din of conversation turned into a pulsing wave of incoherent sound. Amnon was a hot, humid city. He preferred the mild dryness of Erebus Prefecture with its cool winds off the dark waters of the Southron Sea, where it stretched south to the rugged, mountainous islands of Kaasgard and the wide icy wastes of Sarway.
A crystal decanter of honey wine remained untouched on his desk. A small pile of scrolls flexed under the breeze from the fan, edges curled upward in the damp air. One of the scrolls listed the names of those Thufan suggested be incarcerated, the last of Far-ad-din’s supporters. On another, Armal’s much softer views on the supposed rebellious activities of the Family Bey, whom Corajidin would feel much better about, were they easier to spy upon. Their holdings in the Rōmarq were vast, their people clannish and closed to strangers. A report from Farouk outlined the wealth claimed in Corajidin’s name. The list was very, very long. Somewhere it would no doubt be accompanied by a list just as long of those who were either the poorer, or who had disappeared, for providing it.
He looked down at the papers on his desk. Before he had left to send Armal away, Farouk had written Corajidin’s appointments for the day, including his meeting with the overdue Nehrun.
A knock at the door roused him. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes before granting permission for his visitor to enter, and he was surprised when it was Femensetri and Roshana who came through the doorway. Corajidin tasted something sour in his mouth as the two women approached his desk. Neither of them sat, nor did he offer.
Femensetri dropped a scroll case sealed with the white lotus of the Teshri. There were only two people who had such a seal: himself as Asrahn-Elect and Nazarafine as the Speaker for the People.
Corajidin did his best to smile, though he was sure it came out more as a sneer. Femensetri always managed to bring the worst out in him. He glanced at Roshana and had to admit he could see what Belamandris found alluring in her. Her face was handsome, high-cheeked and square-jawed like her brother’s, with dark eyes in their shadowed orbits either side of a slightly long, straight nose. Her hair was tucked behind the slight points of her ears. Roshana wore her light-armored corselet like a robe of state, the hilt of the long-knife strapped to her thigh smooth with use. This one was no peacock.
He glanced down at the wax tablet on his desk, though he did not need to. “I have an appointment—”
“Nehrun’s not coming, Corajidin.” Femensetri’s voice was a harsh thing, all corners and edges. She nodded to the scroll on the desk. “That’s from the Speaker. I wanted to make sure it arrived safe and sound.”
Corajidin eyed the scroll but made no move to touch it.
“It is a writ of abdication, Asrahn-Elect,” Roshana said firmly. “For my brother, Nehrun.”
“What inspired this?” In the Ancestors’ sweet names! Thankfully his voice was calm, though anger tensed in him like a bowstring.
“My brother feels it’s in the best interests of Shrīan, his House, and himself if he abdicates.” Roshana bowed her head in humility, while Corajidin inwardly seethed. “He has appointed me rahn-elect in his place. Obviously, once Indris returns my father to us—”
“Nobody has found
Ariskander.” Corajidin’s words dropped like stones. “Nobody will find Ariskander. Face facts, Roshana, your father—”
“Lives, Asrahn-Elect,” Roshana spat. “Until an heir has been Awakened, we’ll continue to search for him. Where Nehrun has failed, or was, perhaps, less motivated to succeed than he otherwise might have been, we suspect Indris will be far more…”
“Effective?” Femensetri drawled.
“Thank you, Scholar Marshal.” Roshana beamed at Femensetri, who had served generations of the Great House of Näsarat before she had taken her role as Scholar Marshal.
“Nazarafine has endorsed Roshana as the new rahn-elect, so she’ll now represent her House on the Teshri.” Femensetri looked down at Corajidin. Her mindstone flared with curls of shadow. “Are there any arrangements, or discussions, you had with Nehrun that Roshana needs to know about?”
“Nothing comes to mind,” he lied. Curse Nehrun! Corajidin had counted on the man to keep his own House in order with regards to any search for Ariskander. Knowing Indris was the man who hunted for Ariskander filled Corajidin with new doubt. Thankfully the marshlands were large and days had passed since Ariskander had gone missing. “What of Nehrun? Will he return to Narsis or to his estates in the prefecture?”
Femensetri grinned at Corajidin. It was a wild thing, ripe with her contempt for him. “Nehrun took ship early this morning for the Shrine of the Vanities. There he’ll meditate upon his life. Have no fear, Corajidin! The Sēq Scholars at the shrine will be more than capable of protecting him from harm. After all, who knows what secrets he might yet reveal?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“The challenges in our lives are meant to render us neither immobile nor otherwise helpless, rudderless, or lost. They are meant to help us discover the roots of who we are.”—Balimore Swann, leader of the Ondean militia, 564th Year of the Awakened Empire
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