Darkness engulfed her. Dragged inside the doorway, Star had an impression of a narrow, low corridor, probably lined with murder holes. Tafir was down on his back, and her captor tripped over him. Was her friend dead? Would she to follow?
The black smoke suddenly parted like a sandstorm, and through the rent charged a big sergeant with a strawberry birthmark-Tafir's friend, Star thought. Rosey streamed blood from a dozen cuts on arms and hands and face.
Outraged, he roared, 'Save her highness!'
The veteran threw a knotted fist, too fast to see, that whistled by Star's head. The man-killing blow crunched on something soft. Star felt the garrote loosen, and she yanked it free of her throat. Hard hands clutched her against a man's sweaty, bloody chest. She smelled wine and onions and knew Rosey had rescued her-a good thing, for her legs went weak as jelly, her feet too numb to stand.
Five stumbling steps brought light piercing the gloom. More hands caught and lifted her from the smoke that coiled like death's touch. Star's legs gave out, and her knees banged stone as she collapsed in the street, rubbing her throat and retching. Rosey hadn't followed, and Star wondered why.
Shadows flickered as someone hurtled over her head. Like sheep over a fald, five more bodies vaulted down the stairs. Star's spinning vision couldn't identify them.
Noise exploded from below: shouts, screams, a rampaging trumpet like an elephant's call. Forcing her eyes open, Star saw a woman in a blue tunic and kilt smash a spear haft against someone's head. On her breast was painted an eight-pointed star-Amenstar's own emblem. Her royal bodyguard had arrived.
The trumpet blared again, and Star cried for joy. As the smoke dimmed, she beheld a ten-foot monster looming over cowering humans.
The creature's upper half was a black woman with a fist-sized bump on her broad nose and breasts like watermelons encased in a harness of blue leather. From the waist down, extending more than twelve feet, was the street-filling bulk of a rhinoceros draped with a star-painted mantle like a tent. M'saba, formerly of the bakkal's heavy cavalry, was the biggest of Amenstar's thirty bodyguards. Seeing the rhinaur's savage fury directed at the assassins gave the samira a twinge of shame. She shouldn't have ditched her faithful guards just to lark with her common friends.
The smoke was exhausted. Amenstar's bodyguards searched the thieves' den while M'saba blocked the street in one direction and more guards blocked the other end. Captain Anhur, chief of Star's bodyguards, snarled, 'Everyone lie down immediately or I'll personally ram a spear through your guts!'
Citizens and soldiers dropped flat. Some people were already down, streaked with blood, dead or dying or wounded. Some thieves looked like bundles of rags soaked in blood, so viciously had they been pounded and stabbed.
Yuzas Anhur crouched beside her mistress and gently offered a calloused hand. Still weak, Star rose meekly to distinguish friend from foe. Friends were hustled at spear point past the huge rhinaur to where the local populace goggled. Gheqet and Tafir went quietly. One by one Star tolled off the soldiers from the tavern, and they were also released. She felt a pang when her guards exited the thieves' den dragging two of the bakkal's soldiers by the heels. One was Rosey, slashed across the throat by a long curved knife, his blood redder than his birthmark. The man had given his life for hers. Star's eyes stung, and fat tears washed runnels through the dust and smoke that darkened her cheeks.
Star pointed out the assassins who'd initiated the attack, and Captain Anhur had them bound hand and foot and gagged. The captain said, 'The bakkal's chancellor will wish to know your motives, and our dark vizars will be glad to torture out your truths.'
The captain summoned neighbors to identify the other suspects and so dismissed a few terrified civilians caught in the sweep. Left cowering on their knees were four men and a mere girl in dark rags who couldn't account for themselves. Three were tattooed with the crocodile teeth bracelets of hatori.
'Condemned, all,' the captain pronounced. 'Roll up that wine barrel. Ges, Rhu, bring up a prisoner. M'saba, do the honors.'
Pinned by the arms, the first hatori was draped across a wine barrel. M'saba's four feet, each as big as the barrel, drummed forward. The rhinaur hefted a halberd long as a flagpole with a steel axe head big as a tabletop, raised it toward the sky, and swept it earthward.
The massive axe lopped off the thief's head like a chicken's, shattered the oak barrel into splinters, and buried itself in the street three feet deep. M'saba loved her mistress Amenstar and hated her attackers. Her frustration showed.
Captain Anhur snickered. 'Roll out another barrel. Not so hard this time, 'Saba.'
In a trice, the thieves' bloody carcasses were stacked in the street with the heads plunked atop as a warning.
Captain Anhur detailed six guards to watch the house until the palace chancellor could search it.
'A lucky rescue, your highness,' concluded the captain. 'Only three soldiers and two innocents were killed, and you were only grazed. We'll return you home now.'
It was not a request. Surrounded by guards, Amenstar went meekly.
'… you could have been killed, darling, or held for ransom. That, you must understand, would upset your father's plans terribly. With you prisoner, those hatori criminals could make outrageous demands, such as the release of their cronies from prison. These kidnappers don't work alone, but they conspire with our enemies. Even some noble houses in this city plot against us. Their demands are more plebian, centering on money, of course. They scheme for lower tariffs, or trading favors against rivals, or that we install some vagabond to a high office… Are you listening?'
'Yes, Mother.'
Amenstar resisted the urge to roll her eyes and sigh deeply. Her mother was cranky enough, awakened early: that is, just at sunset. Star slouched and stared through the tall windows at her courtyard. A fountain danced above a glittering pool laced with fading shadows. A servant fed tidbits to bug-eyed carp. On a perch near the window, two scarlet and blue macaws nuzzled. An ocelot rolled in its sleep, brass chain chinking. One of her saluqis, a slate-blue greyhound, yawned so widely that Star had to clamp her own jaw shut. Four maids, identical in simple linen shifts, square-cut black hair, and eyes lined with kohl in tribute to their mistress, waited along the wall like painted effigies- punished along with their mistress. Four personal maids comprised the day shift, and eight more attended Star by night, when the royal compound became active.
Bored, Amenstar let her eyes roam over her quarters. Everything in sight was hers. One entire wing of the family compound, nine opulent rooms surrounding a courtyard with a pool, gardens, and fruit trees. Her father, the bakkal, or priest-king of Cursrah, had four wives, of which Star's mother was sama, the first, or senior queen. Star had two elder brothers and twelve younger, and nine younger sisters, with more siblings on the way. Luckily, as eldest princess she enjoyed great privileges, as well as grating pains, such as her mother's incessant harping. The daughter tuned in momentarily to see if the tirade covered anything new.
'… is the duty of royalty to set a good example for the kingdom. How can we expect commoners to behave and exalt us as descendants of the most high genies, when you insist on crawling through gutters with low-born rascals-'
'My friends are noble born,' Star interrupted, 'and I think royalty should venture out occasionally and see how common people regard us. How can you and Father claim to rule this kingdom if you don't know the people? Do the citizens love us, hate us, or not care at all? Do you know? All of Cursrah's noble class lives by night while the commoners toil by day. How can you say that you understand them?'
Star's mother resembled her daughter but for greater girth and thicker makeup to disguise wrinkles, and like her daughter she rolled her eyes in exasperation. Having just arisen from a day of sleep, even the first sama wore the universal, simple tubelike shift. Her plump figure floated in a cloud of gauze filmy as spider webs.
'Amenstar, dear, royalty relies on advisors to gather knowledge and give counsel-which always conflicts. We don't tell the cooks how to salt the broth. Great Calim himself, all praise his name, assigned us each a specific role. The royal family tends to the highest chores: steering diplomacy between the city-states, interpreting the wishes of the gods, overseeing a balanced trade, monitoring our neighbors' internal politics-'
'You're lax in that,' Star blurted. 'Our soldiers fear Father, and you underestimate the threat from Oxonsis.
