by Micah Yongo
The market was closing as they passed through the gates. The bazaar stretched out along a row of city houses flanking the roadway. The quiet stalls spilled from its nub onto the main thoroughfare as vendors ambled lazily along, proffering their wares to the drunken fishermen who’d come in from the lake as they japed with one another from their sprawled seats outside the terraces. Beyond them, others gathered along the roadside to stand and watch the royal caravan pass by as what remained of the day’s light waned.
Sidon watched it all without really watching. An hour from now he would meet her. A day from now he would be wed, the wayposts of his future marked out for him like the walls of a rat’s maze. Mother, Elias, even Uncle Játhon, they all spoke only of duty and necessity. His power and rule would come once he was secure. This was the way things had to be. He was too young to see it now but later he would understand. Later. Too young. Their favourite song. Only Iani seemed to listen to him, dipping her head in that abashed way of hers that morning as she helped him dress, apologizing as if the whole thing were her fault. Ridiculous to think about, a slave sympathizing with a king.
Sidon tossed the thought aside as the car came to a halt beside the Judge House. It was getting dark. The broad bulk of the building towered over the surroundings, rivalling even the royal palace for size. Since Governor Zaqeem’s death every vassal of the Sovereignty had coveted his place here and even in the dark it wasn’t hard to see why. The broad-stepped colonnade stretched the length of several houses, propping up the ornate entablature with its carvings of bears and pomegranates. In the middle, a high arched doorway with the carved likeness of Sharíf Kaldan at its apex dominated. For a governor, being seated here was the closest you could come to living like a king without being one. Which was funny, Sidon thought, since he was a king yet seldom felt like one.
“King of kings.”
The city steward came waddling out from the huge building with a welcoming grin plastered across his pink panting face, followed by a small crew of house servants carrying oil lamps.
Sidon stepped down from the car. “Hello, Yassr.”
“Ah, and our glorious mother, Sharífa Chalise. Both of you here at last.” He gasped as he made his way down the steps and across the courtway, his jowls shaking despite a persistent grin which abruptly dropped away as he gestured impatiently to the servants with him. Several guardsmen and attendants obediently hurried forward to unload the caravan. Yassr retrieved his grin like a momentarily dropped keepsake and looked Sidon over.
“The last time I saw you, you were…” The governor lifted his hand, palm down, and measured to just beneath his broad saggy chest, squinting. “And now see you. Near enough a man grown. Lord and ruler.” He clapped a hand on Sidon’s shoulder and turned to lead them into the house. “Now, Sharíf,” he said, pronouncing the title with relish. “I will not have you worry. I have seen to everything. The food. The ceremony. You will find your chambers comfortable and in order. And the bed, believe me, my king, you will love the bed, that or I shall have men flogged.” He laughed heartily. Several of the servants flinched as they carried the luggage. “And of course it will be my delight to show you the rest of the Judge House, Sharíf. It was your forefather, Sharíf Kaldan, who first built it, you know.”
“Yes, Yassr.”
“It was to be his–”
“Personal summerhouse, a second palace of sorts. I know, Yassr. I haven’t forgotten your lessons. And even if I had, his likeness above the doorway would soon remind me.”
Yassr giggled in his throat. His flabby neck quivered. “Always such a clever child. You’d have made an able scribe, Sharíf, if you were not to make an abler king.”
They stepped through the tall, broad doorway and into a wide pillared lobby with the queen mother and servants following behind. The ceiling was tiled in chequered blue and terracotta squares. Patterns and animals painted in the same colours adorned the walls whilst bronze lampstands lined the chamber like lights at a mourner’s vigil. Yassr led them through to an adjoining passage at the end of the lobby that in turn led into another corridor.
“The ceremony will be perfect, Sharíf. Perfect. There are five hundred bullocks from Hardeny. The finest honeywine from Tresán. Enough livestock for half the city to sound like a herdsman’s field. Many of the vassals were here by midday, you know. Only Fatya of Tirash is yet to arrive. Although…” He paused and turned to face him. “There has been word your betrothed will arrive on the morrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Chalise said from behind.
“Yes, Sharífa. Regrettable, I know.”
“They are to wed tomorrow.”
“And so they shall. The princess and her party were delayed on the way by sickness. The girl’s father was good enough to send word.” He resumed walking. “Merely a precaution, he says. They will be here in good time. Doubtless the princess simply dislikes the idea of meeting her sharíf and future husband for the first time with a twitchy gut and sickly look. Which is understandable. Always better to rest rather than travel with such things, I think. She will arrive in the morning with more than half a day until the ceremony begins. You needn’t be troubled. Either of you. And especially you, my king. I know you will be curious but rest assured I know the girl, and I speak the truth when I say your mother, our blessed sharífa, as with all things, has shown herself ever wise and keen-eyed. You will be pleased by the bride she has chosen for you when she arrives. Ah, here we are. Your chambers.”
Yassr indicated their rooms as the servants following behind entered ahead of them, carrying the rest of their things.
“I have prepared a place for your handmaids and attendants further along the way,” Yassr said, gesturing loosely along the corridor. “They will be shown by the servants. For now, you need only rest. The banquet will be ready within the hour.”
Yassr was good to his word. An hour later they were reclining at a long table in an even longer banquet room with other gathered heads and vassals of the Sovereignty. Zikram of Geled. Sufiya of Qareb. Uncle Játhon, prince of Caphás. His father, King Sulamar of Calapaar. Játhon’s wife, Queen Satyana of Hikramesh along with her father, Jashar, the king of Harán. There were governors from the High Eastern cities of Tirash and Kaloom. A bejewelled, nose-ringed cohort from the great market city of Qalqaliman far to the south. Consuls from beyond the Black Mountains of Calapaar to the west and north. Everywhere Sidon looked the table brimmed with dignitaries from each corner of the Sovereignty. He hadn’t seen so many of them in one place since his anointing the year before.
“They grow bolder by the day,” Yassr was saying as they ate. “No, by the hour. Kivites, they are…” He flapped a pudgy hand, groping for an insult, then glanced at those present and muttered unintelligibly instead. “Tell them, Zikram,” he said, nudging the ribs of the Geled’s governor beside him. “Tell them what you told me.”
Governor Zikram smiled sheepishly and cleared his throat to speak.
“Perhaps fifty of them,” Yassr cut in again instead. “Fifty!” He gestured wide-eyed at the others reclining at the table, his palms out as though to entreat them. “Imagine, fifty of these… barbarians, crossing into our lands, gleaning from our fields. Bold. They grow much too bold.”
“But is it boldness or despair, Yassr?” Játhon said. “Sometimes the two are easily confused.”
“They incur on the Sovereignty. Their motives matter little.”
“No, dear Yassr, their motives matter much. What do they intend? Invasion? Conquest?”
Some at the table sniggered. The Kivites were a mongrel people, a hundred tribes or more and as fractured and scattered as they were primitive, dwelling beyond the northernmost reach of Calapaar between the Twin Seas. “They entreat, perhaps,” Játhon continued dryly. “They desire terms of trade.” He was leaning back on one elbow by the table, his other hand turning lazily at the wrist as he spoke.
Prince Játhon, Mother’s elder brother, had had this serene mocking way to him for as long as Sidon coul
d remember. It was a manner Sidon had never liked.
“You see, motives always matter,” Játhon said, addressing the table. “Often more so than whatever deeds follow them. It is winter; their granaries and storehouses, if they have such things, no doubt grow scarce. Their harvests are spent.” He returned his attention to Yassr. “Their incursions are not of boldness, they are merely the nervous fidgetings of the scavenger. Despair, as I say.”
“But what if they’re not?” Zikram managed.
Geled was the northernmost city of Calapaar, nearest to the Reach and the scattered territories of Kiv beyond it. Although the city was one of the Sovereignty’s strongest forts, it still made sense for Zikram, as its governor, to be nervous. Which was probably why Sidon found himself, unexpectedly, speaking up.
“Yes,” he said. “What if Yassr is right?”
“Well,” Játhon raised an eyebrow, glancing at Sidon. “If it proves to be so you will have me to do your bidding, with the armies of Tresán and Caphás at my back. Either way you’ll need not trouble yourself with Yassr’s wanton flights of imagination… my king.”
More sniggers. More eating. Sidon let his gaze wander toward the drawings on the wall. The likenesses of the seven Sharífs who’d come before him were marked out in postures of repose or war along the pale span. Sidon examined each one as the chatter moved on to other things – the trouble with Hardenese seamstresses, why never to trust a butcher without sons, how stubborn were goatherds in Súnam, why would anyone go to Súnam. Sidon nodded at what seemed appropriate junctures until he noticed Yaron, one of the royal courtiers, crouching at his mother’s shoulder, murmuring into her ear. His mother nodded once and rose from the table. Sidon looked at her, but her gaze, as she turned, passed straight through him as though he wasn’t there.
He watched her turn and walk from the room. The familiar silent reproaches seemed to echo in her every step away from him. Too young. When you’re older. They were there in the curt patient nods of Elias, the chamberlain. There in the scathing way his mother had woken him in bed the night before. There in the cool smiles and clever words of Uncle Játhon and the other governors and vassals at the table. There in all their obscure and useless, boring talk of shipping routes and gold, trade and spices. Sidon could suddenly feel the banality of it all, holding him at arm’s length like an unruly child from the things that really mattered, all because he was just too young.
He rose to his feet.
The conversation at the table abruptly died.
“Sharíf?”
He ignored them and marched after his mother. Why shouldn’t he know her counsels? Why should things be kept from him? He was nearly fifteen. Soon to be wed. He was the ruler of the Five Lands by right, the king of kings. If he wanted to know the counsels of his mother, he would know them.
He saw her huddled with Elias at the end of the corridor as he stepped out of the banquet room. She turned and spotted him as she glanced over the chamberlain’s shoulder. Her gaze lingered, mildly annoyed, forehead crimping, and suddenly what seemed so clear as Sidon had sat in the banquet room watching her leave, just as quickly turned murky again.
Her gaze passed on as she conducted Elias around the corner, away from Sidon’s prying and out of view.
“The chamberlain has been agitated since the herald arrived.”
Sidon jerked around to find the slavegirl, Iani, standing behind him with a washcloth and a platter. Mother, still annoyed at the girl’s being here, had ordered her to help with serving the banquet along with the other servants. The roasted flesh of a small pig’s hindquarters sat on the wooden tray surrounded by an assortment of stew-drenched onions and chopped pieces of plum.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle–”
“You didn’t,” Sidon snapped.
The girl paused, bowed hesitantly, and turned to enter the banquet room.
“Wait. What herald?”
She stopped. “Oh… I do not know, Sharíf… It was not my place to ask.”
Sidon turned back to the empty space where his mother and the chamberlain had been whispering together moments before. “Nor mine, it seems,” he muttered.
He looked back around to find the slavegirl still standing there, nervously gripping the platter with both hands.
“What is it, Iani?”
Her eyes dropped to the floor. “Forgive me, my king, but… there is nothing that is not your place. You are sharíf.”
When Sidon didn’t answer she bowed apologetically and quickly shuffled into the banquet room with the pork.
Sidon thought about following her in, thought about returning to his seat at the table and the talk of cedar and trade roads and all the other things he was expected to quietly listen to and learn. Then he thought about the crowned drawings on the wall. Karel the Young. Arvan the Scribe. Theron the Great. Kaldan the Quiet. There is nothing that is not your place. You are sharíf. He stepped back from the doorway, tugged his tunic straight, and walked instead toward the corner his mother and Elias had moved around, his heart knocking gently in his ears with each step. He came around the corner.
“…and better now that the census has been passed.”
“Even so. Something should be done now if there is to be…”
The chamberlain trailed off when he saw Sidon. The queen mother turned around.
“What are the two of you talking about?” Sidon said.
She blinked. “What did you say?”
“I… I just think it’s time I was told of these things.”
The sharífa stiffened, and then stepped forward and began to steer him by the shoulder back toward the banquet.
“I want to know.”
“It does not concern you.”
“Why not?”
“Not now, Sidon.”
“If not now, then when?” He shrugged loose. “I am sharíf.”
“You are a boy.”
“I am the ruler of the Five Lands.”
She sighed and turned away from him, back to the chamberlain, ready to usher him further down the corridor, away from Sidon.
“I ought to know.”
“Not now.”
Sidon grasped her arm. “It is my place to know what–”
“I said not now!” Her arm flailed out. The back of her hand struck Sidon hard across the cheek, snapping his face to the side with a loud flat slap.
Silence.
The chamberlain’s eyes flicked rapidly between mother and son.
Sidon touched his jaw and looked at his mother.
Chalise’s lips were quivering. The blood had drained from her face. “Oh… my son… I…” She reached her hands hesitantly to cup the reddened cheek.
Sidon stepped back, out of reach.
Chalise slowly drew her hand back.
“I am not your son,” Sidon said finally. “I am sharíf, your high king… and when you speak to me you are to address me as such.”
The queen mother hesitated, then, slowly, bowed her head. “Yes… I’m sorry… my king.”
Sidon looked at the chamberlain. His voice came low and cold. “You will tell me what the two of you have been whispering about.”
The chamberlain’s gaze slid like a merchant’s watching a scale. To the sharíf. To the sharífa. Before calmly fixing once more on Sidon as though nothing of note had happened or been asked. “It is thought the graverobbers, the rebel Shedaím, may be here, in the city.”
“In Qadesh? You are certain?”
“Not certain, no. But…” His eyes again flicked momentarily to the queen. “The question of whether to close the city gates and shut them in… I thought perhaps we may stand a better chance of searching them out if they’ve no way of escape.”
“But if we close them,” Chalise added, “your betrothed could be prevented from entering in the mob that will build outside the walls. It could ruin the wedding and…” She trailed off as Sidon’s glare turned to her.
“Close the gates,” the sharíf said. “And se
t some among the watchmen who will know my betrothed when they see her. Should she arrive, she will be let in, whilst the archers on the wall watch for any who try to follow without being bid.”
The chamberlain bowed. “Very good, Sharíf,” and moved quickly away down the hall.
Sidon spared his mother a final glance and then turned to return to the banquet room and continue his meal. When he came around the corner the slavegirl was standing there. She stepped back hurriedly, part fear, part excitement. For him, Sidon realized. She’d been listening to the whole thing.
He smiled and favoured her with a curt nod as he passed by, feeling almost grateful to her. There is nothing that is not your place. You are sharíf. The words echoed in his head as he strode through the door to return to the banquet room. For the first time, they actually felt true.
Thirty
K I N
Most of the scroll was covered in pictures, each one etched in charcoal and ink over the rough leathered page. Then, every so often, the occasional line of writing, unintelligible scriptures of dots, lines and glyphs that were mostly unfamiliar and yet every so often hinted – a shape here, a cursive scribble there – at something that would round into meaning, though never did. Neythan gazed at the drawings. They were sparse, with the odd smudge of colour, red or blue, inks that would’ve been costly even today. Blue dye was never an easy thing to find. Filani, the dye merchant, would say the same if she were here. A strange woman, that one. With stranger sayings. Perhaps she’d have been able to make sense of these scriptures. Maybe she’d have been able to read these words.
“What are you doing?”
Neythan snatched the roll to himself and began to quickly shuffle the page back along the thick wood pin.
“I was only asking.”
He covered the rolled page with the tattered vellum wrap of the scrollcoat.