by Micah Yongo
Yasmin looked to her husband.
Hassan gently cleared his throat. “He is very upset, of course,” he said, careful not to address the father, whose face he’d yet to purchase. Instead he looked to the elder who’d first spoken to him. Hassan was more familiar with Súnamite custom than Zíyaf had evidently been. “Yet perhaps the kindness of leniency would indebt the boy further.”
The elder, pleased both by the deftness of Hassan’s answer and that he continued to address him rather than the offended party, smiled. “Perhaps so,” he said, and looked again to the father.
The father shrugged unhappily. “Two measures of cornwine then,” he said.
“The father is a generous man,” the elder said.
“He is,” Hassan said. “Perhaps too generous… let it be three measures.”
The elder looked to the father. The father nodded, accepting the offer.
“Obasi accepts,” the elder said, naming the father for the first time to indicate Hassan’s right to now address him directly. His offer of more cornwine had been enough to pay for the father’s face. He would now have the chance to discuss the suitability of Zíyaf, and beyond that, if Obasi proved willing, the brideprice.
“I see you are familiar with our ways,” the first elder said.
“Only some,” Hassan answered. “They are noble customs.”
“Though costly ones?”
Hassan smiled wryly. “Perhaps some would say so. But sometimes such a thing is good. A man holds precious what he has paid for. And in these matters this is important.”
“Ah.” The elder smiled again, his eyes closing as if to music. “You see, Obasi. This man speaks well; if the boy is of his stock he may not be so bad.”
Obasi grunted and sucked his teeth.
“I and the boy do not share the same blood, but I have known his family well and can speak for them.”
“Where are they?” Obasi demanded. “The boy comes with no people of his own.”
“He has only a sister. His mother and father are no more. He did not think it fitting to visit with only cousins, men who are of age with him.”
“As are you,” Obasi said. “The boy has no grey-haired man to speak.”
“It is true. Yet, in the city of my home, I am an elder nonetheless.”
“Then your city is poor, that children are elders there.”
“Obasi,” the other elder said. “Your tongue should mind the company of a prince. This man is steward of Dumea.”
Hassan was lifting his hand to wave off the insult when several tall men – barechested and dark-skinned – suddenly barged in through the stringed drapery of the doorway. They wore graven armlets and patterned knee-length skirts with coloured threads tied around their elbows and ankles. They were not villagers.
Hassan, instinctively, got to his feet. Yasmin rose beside him, looking to the elders for guidance. Perhaps it was another custom, one they were unfamiliar with. The old men only frowned and gawped at the intrusion… and then they saw the young woman step into the hut behind the men.
“Inchah,” Obasi gasped, and then bowed toward her. The other elders did likewise.
The woman’s skin had the colour and polished sheen of an eggplant. Her long arms, bared midriff and tapered waist were smooth as a child’s. The whites of her eyes seemed to shine in the dimness like a cat’s against her glossy dark skin. Bangles of gold and turquoise ringed her tall neck and wrists like armour.
She dropped her chin to acknowledge the bowing elders.
“Forgive me, fathers,” she said. “It is not right I enter unbidden.” Her gaze swung toward Hassan. “But I have come from my mother’s side to speak with this man.” She glanced back to the elders. “And I must speak with him alone.”
To Yasmin’s surprise, the elders rose gingerly from their seats and began to move, wordlessly, toward the doorway to be ushered out by the barechested guardsmen. Then the young woman turned and looked at her.
“You must leave also.”
Yasmin frowned, part fear, part affront. She looked to Hassan.
“It is alright, Yasmin…” He was eyeing the woman carefully.
Her hair was coiled and short, cropped close to the skull and covered by a gauzy cap of laced gold that hung to just above her shoulders like a wig of jewelled cobweb. Yasmin had seen the style before, loosely sketched in some of the scrolls Hassan was always encouraging her to read back at the library in Dumea. It was the fashion of Súnamite royalty.
“Wait for me outside,” Hassan said to his wife.
Yasmin’s gaze switched between Hassan and the dark-skinned young woman. “I will not,” she said.
The woman glanced at her. The guard by the door came striding forward and then stopped abruptly as the woman raised her hand. “No,” she said, smiling a little, her eyes still on Yasmin. “It is good… We will let her stay.”
The guard gave Yasmin a narrow glance and slowly stepped away, returning to his place by the door.
The young woman’s gaze slid from Yasmin to Hassan. Her royalty was obvious. Why she was here wasn’t. Yasmin and Hassan had come to the Summerlands several times before and never encountered Súnamite nobility. Nubassa, the crown city, was as far south of here as Dumea was north. Probably farther.
“You are Hassan, son of Nalaam,” the woman eventually said.
“I am.”
She paused, pursing her thick lips as she looked him over. Her voice was deep and smooth. “They say your line were kings once, in Dumea.”
“Then you know more of my line than we can know of yours,” Hassan said.
The woman smiled fractionally, acknowledging the implied question. “I am Imaru, daughter to Queen Umani, ruler of Súnam.”
Hassan digested that with a slow intake of breath. “Your mother’s throne lies far from these outskirts, highness.”
“My mother takes interest in every corner of her land, even its outskirts,” she inclined her head, watching him carefully. “Watching for those who come, those who go.”
“Then she will know our coming here is innocent.”
The speculation in Imaru’s eyes seemed to disagree. “Yes,” she said nonetheless. “It would seem so… at least for now.”
“And for hereafter. I carry no ill intents. We have come only to–”
“You misunderstand me, son of Nalaam.”
Hassan frowned at her interruption.
Imaru appraised him. She began to slowly stroll around the edge of the room, watching them as she walked. “It has been near to one hundred years since your Sovereignty last sought to enter our lands and take what does not belong to them. There are still those among my people old enough to remember… We have a saying – the jackal cannot be tamed. It shall be as it has been. What it has sought before it will in time seek again. My people say the only true way to be safe from a jackal is to learn his ways, or kill him…” She completed her circuit and turned to face them. “And there is no better way to do either than by one who belongs to his pack.”
It took a moment for Yasmin to understand, and then suddenly she saw it, the reason why Súnam’s queen would send her daughter all this way to a small village in search of Hassan.
“Yes,” Imaru said it slowly, recognizing the comprehension in their silence. “We have spies along the Narrow, son of Nalaam. It is how we knew you were coming here. But we have no spies in the Sovereignty. No way of knowing what moves in the Five Lands.”
“You are asking me to… spy, for Súnam?”
“You are the governor of Dumea,” Imaru said. “The nearest city to the Narrow in the Sovereignty. It almost borders our lands and will be a stronghold in any battle between my people and your sharíf. What better watchman could Súnam have?”
“And why would I agree to that?”
She smiled. “I know about Dumea, son of Nalaam. The Sovereignty never conquered it. Never broke its walls, never pillaged its people. Your father made a covenant with the Five Lands to protect the library, and in so d
oing robbed you of your birthright. Now they call you steward where once they would have named you king. Because of the Sovereignty. Your ancestors weep for you, son of Nalaam. Because of the Sovereignty. And yet you ask why you would agree to what I have asked…” Her smile soured, became pitying. “Still,” she added. “If you need another reason I shall give you one. You will agree because whatever favour you thought precious enough to journey two weeks south of the Narrow for…” She glanced at the chest of tribute in the corner. “With trinkets and treasures for these village elders – shall be granted or refused you by my command.” She returned her gaze to him. “So. Your aim in coming here can be fulfilled, son of Nalaam. But only if you agree.”
“You’re asking me to commit treason.”
Her lips tautened in amusement. “I am asking you to be as a watchman. No more. The queen desires but a small thing, to know when the Five Lands bring their armies to the Narrow. Should it not be so in your lifetime, you will have no need to act. We seek only to protect our lands, our people. Is that not a small price for the prize your long journey has sought?”
Yasmin thought about the elders who’d moments ago sat before them discussing the brideprice; Bilyana, who’d promised to divulge secrets of Zaqeem’s death in return for their favour. But what secrets? Why had Hassan even countenanced the offer? Why had he considered it worth all this – the journey, the tribute? And why, even now, was he deliberating over this woman’s request to spy on her behalf for its sake? What could be worth such risk? What mystery concerning her brother’s death could be so vital? What was Hassan hiding?
“I will do it.” It took a moment for Yasmin to realize she herself had spoken the words.
Hassan turned and stared at her. As did the princess. Then Imaru smiled. “Good. Then it is agreed.” Her gaze lingered on Yasmin. “You see? There was profit in your staying after all, little dove.”
It was only afterward, once she’d emerged from the hut with Hassan and found Bilyana rushing toward them from beneath the pen, that Yasmin felt the weight of it sink into her.
“Well?” Bilyana said as she came to a stop in front of her.
For a moment Yasmin couldn’t speak, her thoughts in a fog. She regarded Bilyana grimly as she dipped beneath the shelter’s shade. Hassan walked on beyond the pen to the other side of the clearing in silence. Yasmin watched as he sat down on the far side with his head in his hands.
“Well?” Bilyana said again. “What is it? What happened?”
“It is all agreed,” Yasmin said numbly, hardly able to believe the words even as she spoke them. “We have come to agreement. The elders will receive your brother.”
Bilyana’s eyes widened. She gasped, grinning. “Thank you!”
“We have paid heavily for what you have claimed to know, Bilyana,” Yasmin said. “It had better be worth the price.”
Fourteen
S E C R E T S
Strange place, Súnam. The territory bordered the Sovereignty’s southern reach, hedged up against the low lands to the north and south of the Narrow Sea by the twin desert passes on either side. Beyond that, what was known of the place itself was limited. A collection of largely rural provinces scattered across jungly forestland and stretches of desert, punctuated by a few great cities deep within its boundaries that no one from the Five Lands had seen firsthand for more than two centuries. Beyond that, no telling how far south the land stretched, or its population. Which was why, Daneel thought as he squatted beside Josef in the undergrowth, it was strange for Hassan and Yasmin to be here.
True, Dumea in many ways was a city unto itself, abiding by its own laws, just as it had since the day it was stripped of being crown city of Hardeny when Kosyatin the Bloody conquered the land half a century ago. He’d left Dumea as the country’s only surviving stronghold, a walled island surrounded by nothing but villages and homesteads for miles. Apparently, it had been his one act of mercy, and that only because his scribes begged him to resist destroying the place to preserve the famed library of Hophir that sat within its walls. So for Dumea’s ruler to have now journeyed here to Súnam, the one land to have successfully defied the Sovereignty since the Cull was, well, unexpected. Perhaps even concerning. More so given the journey now seemed to have involved meeting a young Súnamite who, by the looks of her, was probably some kind of dignitary. A noblewoman perhaps, if they had such things here.
From their vantage point, Daneel and Josef watched Hassan and Yasmin step out from the hut and wander beneath the shelter at the centre of the clearing. Hassan went to the far side, leaving Yasmin, and stood by the endpost, staring out toward the road that had brought them in. The Súnamite noblewoman exited the hut a few moments later and signalled to her guardsmen, preparing to leave.
“Interesting,” Daneel said.
“Very,” Josef said.
Daneel glanced to the rest of the group beneath the shelter. There was Bilyana daughter of Yoaz, fanning herself with a banana leaf she’d had set with twigs. Her brother, Ziyaf, sat beside her, scratching his neck and muttering in her direction. Several handmaids and servants were gathered together on the other side, laughing with the colourfully dressed locals whilst their masters brooded in the shade.
Tracking them here had been easy enough. No need to follow too closely with a party this size, especially with the trail of debris and camel dung they left in their wake. More difficult had been the heat, along with the unfamiliar animals and plant life. Choosing what fruits and leaves to pick and where best to bed for the night was a continual guessing game. In the end they’d settled for following the choices of those they were tracking, using the discarded shells, twigs and skins of Hassan’s travelling party as a guide for what to eat. This wasn’t the Dumean’s first trip down here after all.
Daneel watched him now, leaning to one side for a better look. Hard to see Hassan from this angle, a pair of claybricked huts on the periphery blocking the view, and Hassan kept passing in and out from behind them as he stalked agitatedly around beneath the canopy.
“They were in there quite a while,” Daneel said.
“They were.”
“Who do you think she is, the Súnamite?”
Josef shrugged. “An emissary maybe. Perhaps a princess.”
“You think she is royalty?”
“You saw the elders leave when she entered. And she was wearing turquoise. Only those of royal blood are permitted to do so here.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes.”
“We should follow her.”
Josef looked at him.
“What?”
“That would be risky. Not to mention your decree is Hassan, which, since I’m here with you, makes it mine too.”
Daneel snorted. “That was before we witnessed him consorting with the throne of Súnam.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You just said she may be royalty.”
“Only maybe.”
“Then we should make certain.”
“We have our decrees, Dan.”
Daneel looked at his brother as he would a stranger cracking a bad joke. It had always been this way with Josef, even since childhood. No imagination. Given to stubbornness. Take this scroll he’d been carrying, hidden in his coat since Dumea. Daneel had noticed it several nights before amongst Josef’s things when they’d made camp on their way here. The edge of a page prodding from a hidden inner sleeve when Josef had got up to relieve himself. So of course, Daneel had gone over to look at it. Why not? Why would he expect his brother to keep something from him? Secrets were for others. Not for them. They were blood. Twins, no less. Two souls in one flesh, like Mother used to say, back before Ilysia, when they were still a family and she was still alive. Back before Father did what he did and then forbade his little sons from ever speaking of it or her. That was a vow Josef kept but Daneel wouldn’t, no matter how many times Father beat him, which was something Daneel still hadn’t forgiven Josef for, his continuing refusal – out of obedien
ce to a man who was now dead – to speak of their mother.
“I’m going after her,” Daneel said. “The Súnamite.”
Josef glanced sidelong at him. “You can’t do that.”
“Take it you’re not coming then.”
“We need to stay with the steward.”
“You need to stay with the steward. The advantage of there being two of us is we can divide our interests. We can keep to our decree and investigate at the same time.”
“Daneel.”
“I’m going.” Daneel spat the words, saw his brother’s eyes shift to him in what, for Josef, could almost have passed for a flinch. Daneel couldn’t even make himself feel bad about it. Why should he? For days he’d waited for his brother to show him the scroll. To share it with him, explain the strange markings and items stitched into the page, speculate on the fact it bore the name of Qoh’leth, the father of the Brotherhood, of all people. For Daneel, just failing to confess he knew of it had been a struggle. Josef, however, had seemed able to remain his usual serene self, as though keeping things from his brother was the easiest thing in the world to do, a way worn smooth with habit. Daneel was beginning to think it was time he got some secrets of his own. He stepped back from the hedge of bushes in front of them.
“I’m going,” he said again.
“Dan, you can’t just go and…”
But Daneel was already moving, striding out of earshot, too far for Josef to call out to him without raising alarm. He quickly clambered down a shallow verge in the undergrowth and worked his way south in the same direction the noblewoman had arrived from, angling away from the settlement and deeper into the cover of the jungle that surrounded it to flank her travelling party as they journeyed further in. Fat-leaved saplings, greener than any green Daneel had ever seen, slapped at his waist and thighs as he jogged through the vegetation, weaving his head to avoid the low-hung boughs weighed down by the foliage. He soon caught up with the noblewoman’s party, watching them in the distance ahead of him as they marched on through the undergrowth. Daneel slowed his pace and kept low, just like Tutor Hamir had taught him. That old bald tyrant had made Daneel and the disciples do this sort of thing a thousand times or more back in Ilysia. Mountain deer, doves, hares and any other skittish animal he could think of, Hamir had had the disciples stalk them all, watching to see how close they could get without disturbing their prey.