Out of the Darkness

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re just a pack of clumsy children playing with toys-and not playing very well,” he went on.

“Odds are, we won’t find out what sort of work they’ve done till the fall,” Kolthoum said. “By then, they can expect we’ll either have forgotten all the promises they’ve made or lost their bill or both.”

“They can expect it, but they’ll be disappointed,” Hajjaj said. “They don’t know how well you keep track of such things.” His senior wife graciously inclined her head at the compliment. She’d never been a great beauty, and she’d got fat as the years went by, but she moved like a queen. From roofers, Hajjaj went on to other complications: “Speaking of toys. .”

He needed no more than that for Kolthoum to understand exactly what he had in mind. “What’s the latest trouble with Tassi?” she asked. “And why won’t Iskakis dry up and blow away?”

“Because King Tsavellas of Yanina chose exactly the right moment to change sides and suck up to Unkerlant and we didn’t,” Hajjaj answered. “That means Swemmel’s happier about the Yaninans than he is about us. And besides, Ansovald likes sticking pins in me to see if I’ll jump. Barbarian.” The last word was necessarily in Algarvian; Zuwayzi didn’t have a satisfactory equivalent.

“Why doesn’t Iskakis leave it alone, though?” Kolthoum asked fretfully. “It’s not as if he wants her for herself. If she were a pretty boy instead of a pretty girl, he might. As things are?” She shook her head.

“Pride,” Hajjaj said. “He has plenty of that; Yaninans are prickly folk. A Zuwayzi noble would want to get back a wife who’d run off, too.”

“Aye, so he would, and something horrible would happen to her if he did, too,” Kolthoum said. “Plenty of feuds have started that way. Tassi doesn’t deserve to have anything like that happen to her. She can’t help it if her husband would sooner have had a boy.”

“I wish Marquis Balastro had taken her back to Algarve with him when he had to flee Zuwayza,” Hajjaj said. “But he’d quarreled with her by then; that was what prompted her to come to me.”

His senior wife gave him a sidelong glance. “You can’t tell me you’ve been sorry, and you know it.”

Since Hajjaj knew perfectly well that he couldn’t, he didn’t try. What he did say was, “The latest is, Ansovald had the gall to tell me Yanina might declare war on Zuwayza if I don’t hand Tassi over.”

“Yanina might,” Kolthoum said. Hajjaj nodded. “But we don’t border Yanina,” she went on. Hajjaj nodded again. She asked, “Did he say Unkerlant might declare war on us on account of this?” Hajjaj shook his head. “Well, then,” she told him, “we’ve got nothing to worry about. Enjoy yourself with her, and think of Iskakis every time you do.”

“I wonder if she enjoys herself with me. I have my doubts,” Hajjaj said, a thought he never would have aired to anyone in the world but Kolthoum.

“You’ve given her the pleasure of not having to live with Iskakis anymore,” his senior wife replied. “The least she can do is give you some pleasure in exchange.”

Kolthoum’s brisk practicality made a sensible answer. It did not, however, fill Hajjaj with delight. He had pride of his own, a man’s pride. He wanted to think he pleased the pretty young woman who also pleased him. What he wanted to think and what was true were liable to be two different things, though.

“I take it you told Ansovald the Yaninans were welcome to invade us whenever they chose?” Kolthoum said.

“Actually, no. I’m afraid I lost my temper this time,” Hajjaj said. Kolthoum waved for him to go on. With mingled pride and shame, he did: “I offered Iskakis a camel he could use as he planned on using Tassi.”

“Did you!” His senior wife’s eyebrows rose. After a moment’s calculation- one almost too short for Hajjaj to notice, but not quite-she said, “Well, good for you. Unkerlant won’t go to war against us because Iskakis doesn’t get his wife back. King Swemmel’s a madman, but he’s a shrewd sort of madman.”

“Most of the time,” Hajjaj said.

“Most of the time,” Kolthoum agreed.

“Iskakis is making himself troublesome, though,” Hajjaj said. “I keep wondering if he’ll hire some bravos to do me an injury.”

Now Kolthoum’s eyebrows flew upwards. “A Yaninan hire Zuwayzi bravos to do you an injury? I should hope not, by the powers above! I should hope no one in this kingdom would take his silver for such a thing. Zuwayza wouldn’t be a kingdom if not for you.”

That was, on the whole, true. Nevertheless, Hajjaj answered, “Men don’t turn into bravos unless they love silver first and everything else afterwards. And young men don’t remember-and probably don’t care-how we got to be a kingdom again. It would be just another job as far as they’re concerned, one that paid better than most.”

“Disgraceful,” Kolthoum said. “A hundred years ago, our ancestors never would have thought of such treason against their own kind.”

Hajjaj shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, my dear. I could say, ask Tewfik: he would remember. But he’s not so old as that, and I don’t need to ask him, because I already know. Unkerlant got hold of Zuwayza and held us as long as she did by playing our princes off against one another. These things have happened, and they can happen again.”

“Well, they had better not, not to you, or whoever plays such games will answer to me.” Kolthoum sounded as if she meant every word of that. From some Zuwayzi women, it would have been an idle threat. From Kolthoum. . Hajjaj would not have wanted his senior wife angry at him. Kolthoum arose from the nest of cushions she’d made for herself and flounced away in considerable annoyance.

Why aren’t I more upset at the idea? Hajjaj wondered. Maybe because Iskakis is such a blunderer, any assassins he hires would likely make a hash of the job. Anyone who would let a woman as. entertaining as Tassi leave him can’t be very bright. Of course, Iskakis looked for entertainments of that sort elsewhere. The more fool he, Hajjaj thought.

Joints creaking, he got to his feet and went into the library. Surrounded by books in Zuwayzi, in Algarvian, in classical Kaunian, he didn’t have to think about man’s inhumanity to man. . unless he pulled out a history in any of those languages. He didn’t. A volume of love poetry from the days of the Kaunian Empire better suited his mood.

Motion in the doorway made him look up. There stood Tassi. Since becoming part of his household, she’d insisted on adopting Zuwayzi dress: which is to say, sandals and jewelry and, outdoors, a hat. To Hajjaj’s eyes, she always looked much more naked than a woman of his own people. Maybe that was because he was used to the idea that people of her pale color were supposed to wear clothes. Or maybe her nipples and her bush stood out more than they did with dark-skinned Zuwayzin.

“Do I disturb you?” she asked in Algarvian, the only language they had in common.

Aye, he thought, but that wasn’t how she meant the question. “No, of course not,” he said, and closed the book of poems.

“Good.” She came into the library and sat down on the carpeted floor beside him. “Do I hear rightly? Iskakis is being difficult again? Difficult still?”

That didn’t take long, Hajjaj thought. Kolthoum didn’t spread his business around the household, either. Servants going down the hall must have heard bits and pieces, and all the powers above put together couldn’t keep servants from gossiping. “As a matter of fact, he is,” Hajjaj replied. He wouldn’t lie to her, not on matters touching her as well as him.

“Why not just”-she snapped her fingers-”send him away, tell King Tsavellas to pick a new minister? Then he will be gone, and so will the trouble.”

“I can’t do that,” he said.

Tassi snapped her fingers again. “King Shazli can. And he will do as you say.”

That did hold some truth. Hajjaj had hesitated to ask Shazli to declare Iskakis unwelcome in Zuwayza. He was a purist, and did not feel personal problems had any place in the affairs of his kingdom. If, however, Iskakis had killing him in mind, the Yaninan minister was the one mixing personal affairs and diplomacy. “I may ask him,” Hajjaj said at last.

“Good. That is settled, then.” Tassi took such logical leaps as easily, as naturally, as she breathed. “And I will stay here.”

“Does that please you, staying here?” Hajjaj asked.

She looked at him sidelong. “I hope it pleases you, my staying here.”