Winter was the rainy season in Bishah. The capital of Zuwayza rarely got much in the way of rain, but what it got, it got in winter. Sometimes, at this season, it also got cool enough at night to make Hajjaj think wearing clothes might not be the worst idea in the world.
The Zuwayzi foreign minister's senior wife patted his hand when he presumed to say that out loud. 'If you want to put on a robe, put on a robe,' Kolthoum told him. 'No one here will mind if you do.' Her tone suggested than anyone living in Hajjaj's home who did mind any eccentricity he happened to show would answer to her, and would not enjoy doing it.
But he shook his head. 'My thanks, but no,' he said. 'No for two reasons. First, the servants would be scandalized, no matter what they said. I'm an old man now. I've been through too many scandals to invite another one.'
'You're not so old as all that,' Kolthoum said.
Hajjaj was far too courteous to laugh at his senior wife, but he knew better. His hair, having gone from black to gray, was now going from gray to white. (So was Kolthoum's; they'd been yoked together for almost fifty years. Hajjaj didn't notice it in her, for he saw her through the eyesight of a shared lifetime, where today and the lost time before the Six Years' War could blur into each other at a blink.) His dark brown skin had grown wrinkled and leathery. When it did rain here, his bones would ache.
He went on, 'The second reason is even more compelling: so far as I know, we haven't got any clothes here. I have this style and that- short tunics and long ones and kilts and trousers and who knows what useless fripperies- in a closet next to my office down in the city, but I don't need to bother with such foreign nonsense in my own home.'
'If you're feeling chilly, it isn't nonsense,' Kolthoum said. 'I'm sure we could have a maidservant fix you something out of a blanket or curtains or whatever would suit you.'
'I'm fine,' Hajjaj insisted. His senior wife looked eloquently unconvinced, but stopped arguing. One of the reasons they'd got on so well for so long was that they'd learned not to push each other too far.
Tewfik, the majordomo, walked into the chamber where they were sitting. Next to him, Hajjaj truly wasn't so old as all that: Tewfik had served his father before him. Bowing, the clan retainer said, 'Sorry to disturb you, lad' - he was the only man Hajjaj knew who could call him that- 'but a messenger from the palace just brought you this.' He handed Hajjaj a roll of paper sealed with King Shazli's seal.
'I thank you, Tewfik,' Hajjaj replied, and the majordomo bowed again. Hajjaj wasn't upset that he hadn't heard the messenger arrive; sheltering behind thick sandstone walls, his home, like any clanfather's, was a compound well on its way to being a little village. He put on his spectacles, broke the royal seal, unrolled the paper, and read.
'Can you speak of it?' Kolthoum asked.
'Oh, aye,' he said. 'His Majesty summons me to his audience chamber tomorrow morning, that's all.'
'But you'd see him tomorrow anyhow,' his senior wife observed. 'Why does he need to summon you?'
'I don't know,' Hajjaj admitted. 'By tomorrow morning, though, I should find out, don't you think?'
Kolthoum sighed. 'I suppose so.' She reached out and patted her husband on the thigh, a gesture having more to do with sympathy than with desire. It had been a long time since they'd made love. Hajjaj couldn't remember just how long, in fact, but their companionship hardly needed physical intimacy anymore. One of these days, he would have to wed a new junior wife if he sought such amusements. Lalla, recently divorced, had been more expensive and more temperamental than she was worth. One of these days. As he neared seventy, lovemaking seemed less urgent than it had a couple of decades earlier.
He fortified himself with strong tea the next morning before his driver took the carriage down from the foothills and into Bishah proper. It hadn't rained lately, which meant the road wasn't muddy. It also wasn't dusty, a more common annoyance.
Men shouted back and forth on the roof of the royal palace. They weren't guards; the Zuwayzin liked King Shazli well. They were roofers: when the rains came, even the royal roof leaked. Unlike his citizens, Shazli didn't have to wait his turn to get things set right.
As he'd said he would, the king awaited his foreign minister in the audience chamber, a less formal setting than the throneroom. Shazli was about half Hajjaj's age. Hajjaj thought well of him: for a man so young, he was no fool. Only a gold circlet showed the king's rank- the Zuwayzi custom of nudity made display harder.
Bowing, Hajjaj said, 'How may I serve your Majesty?'
'Before we talk business, we can take refreshment,' Shazli answered, by which Hajjaj knew the business wasn't a desperate emergency- the king, unlike his subjects, could put aside the rules of hospitality if he chose. Shazli clapped his hands. A serving woman brought in tea and date wine and honey cakes enlivened with chopped pistachios.
While they nibbled and sipped, Shazli and Hajjaj were limited to polite small talk. Presently, the wine drunk and the cakes diminished, the maidservant came back and carried off the silver tray on which she'd fetched them. Hajjaj watched her swaying backside with appreciation but without urgency. That wasn't just his years; he'd seen so much bare flesh, it didn't inflame him as it did most Derlavaian folk.
'You will be wondering why I summoned you.' Rituals completed, Shazli could with propriety get down to business.
'So I will, your Majesty,' Hajjaj agreed. 'As always, though, I expect you will enlighten me.'
'Always the optimist,' King Shazli said. Hajjaj raised an eyebrow. He'd been his kingdom's foreign minister since Zuwayza regained her freedom from an Unkerlant embroiled in the Twinkings War after the earlier ravages of the Six Years' War. Few men who'd spent their whole careers as diplomatists retained much in the way of optimism by the time they got old. Shazli's wry chuckle said he did know that. He reached under a pillow next to the one against which he reclined and pulled out a sheet of paper. Passing it to Hajjaj, he said, 'This was brought to our line under flag of truce and, once its import was recognized, flown straight here by dragon.'
Like any Zuwayzi, Hajjaj carried a large leather wallet to make up for his dearth of pockets. As he had for Shazli's summons, he took out his spectacles so he could read the document. When he was through, he peered over the lenses at his sovereign. 'Unkerlant has never been a kingdom renowned for subtlety,' he remarked. 'The Unkerlanters would always sooner order than persuade, and they would sooner threaten than order… as we see here.'
'As we see here,' the king agreed. 'All-out war against us- 'war to the knife' was the phrase they used, wasn't it? -unless we leave off fighting them and go over to their side against Algarve. They graciously allow us three days' time before our reply is due.'
Hajjaj read the document again. Shazli had accurately summarized it. Inclining his head, the foreign minister inquired, 'And what would you have of me in aid of this, your Majesty?'
'Can Swemmel do as he threatens?' Shazli demanded. 'If he can, can we hope to withstand him if he hurls everything he has against us?'
'I hope you are also asking General Ikhshid these same questions,' Hajjaj said. 'I am not a soldier, nor do I pretend to be.'
'I am consulting Ikhshid, aye.' King Shazli nodded. 'And I have some notion of what you are and what you are not, your Excellency. I'd better, after all these years. I want your view not as a man of war but as a man of the world.'
Reclining against cushions didn't make even a seated bow easy, but Hajjaj managed. 'You do me too much credit,' he murmured, thinking nothing of the sort. After a few seconds, he shook his head. 'I don't believe King Swemmel can do it,' he said. 'Aye, the Unkerlanters crushed Algarve at Sulingen, but they're still locked with Mezentio's men from the Narrow Sea in the south to the Garelian Ocean here in the tropic north. If they pull enough men from their lines to be sure of crushing us, the Algarvians are bound to find a way to make them pay. Algarve can hurt them worse than we'd ever dream of doing.'
'Ikhshid said the same thing when I asked him last night, which does somewhat relieve my mind,' Shazli said. 'Still… My next question is, is Swemmel so mad for revenge against us that he'd do anything to harm us, not caring what might happen to his own kingdom?'
Hajjaj clicked his tongue between his teeth and sucked in a long, thoughtful breath. No, his sovereign was no fool. Far from it. Though a rational man himself, Shazli knew Swemmel of Unkerlant wasn't, or wasn't always. Swemmel did some unbelievably foolish things, but he also did some unexpectedly clever ones, not least because nobody else could think along with him.
