Qoundi Ammar barracks that guarded it, he saw in the near distance a small troop on horseback. Melting into the shadows, whispering a silencing word to Khamsin, he waited for them to pass.
There were fifteen of them, all in dark crimson tunics, riding the white stallions of the Qoundi Ammar that looked like ghost horses by moonlight. One of the men wore a gold-and-ruby armband. Another repeatedly tossed into the air a long dagger, catching it neatly by the jewel-studded hilt. A third flourished a white silk cloak, embroidered around the edges with autumnbronze leaves.
The armband belonged to his uncle and the dagger to his older brother. And the cloak—he’d watched his sisters stitch the complicated patterns on the great frame in their workroom, hurrying to finish it in time for their father’s birthday.
“Do you realize what the launderers will charge to get the vomit out of this?” complained the man wearing the cloak.
“Puke soaks out,” said another man, who had a length of bronze silk draped across his saddle. “This one will have a bloodstain even if it’s washed a hundred times!”
“At least we got the best pickings,” advised the one wearing the armband. “Pity the poor menials who’ll have to clean up half the palace, with not even a ring left on any of the bodies! Poisoned vomit on the banqueting floor, blood flowing all over the courtyard, every cushion ruined—”
His companions jeered at him for worrying like a house-proud eunuch. Then they rode past the place where Azzad sat trembling in his saddle, and he could hear their voices no more.
“Eminent Majesty,” said the eunuch, concluding his report, “Beit Ma’aliq will be gutted by morning. All within the house are dead. Regrettably—”
“What?” snapped the Sheyqa, glancing up from cooing to newborn Sayyida, who lay sleeping on her knees. She truly was a pretty little thing, and looked just like her grandmother—but for the unfortunate chin.
“Regret, Esteemed Lady, for the houses nearby that caught fire,” he said quickly. “Eleven, before those flames were extinguished.”
“And how did this happen?”
“Unknown, Majesty. But may I humbly suggest that part of the confiscated funds be used to rebuild those houses and repair damage to the others? After all, it was an al-Ma’aliq servant who tipped over a lamp and started the fire.” An unnecessary reminder of the official reason for the conflagration; the explanation would fool no one and was not intended to do so. “Thus it would be a magnanimous gesture on Your Illustrious Majesty’s part—”
“How much will it cost me to be magnanimous?”
“Not more than a tenth part of the whole, Beloved Lady.”
“Oh, very well. It seems I can afford it. What else? It grows late, and my darling little girl wants her nurse.” She glanced over to the bronze-draped bed, where a beautiful young woman lay in the tangle of her hip-length black hair. She was perfectly still and perfectly silent. At long last, silent.
“I expect word by tomorrow evening of the extermination of everyone at the other al-Ma’aliq holdings by the . . .” He paused delicately. “. . . the relatives of Your Exaltedness.”
“My orders were clear—spare no one, not even the lowliest kitchen boy.”
“So it shall be, Majesty,” Arrif replied with a bow. “I have prepared a list of candidates to replace the managers and most skilled crafters at all the estates.” After a thoughtful pause, he continued, “The fallahin in their villages will also be killed. I surmised that Your Majesty would not wish any alMa’aliq supporters to survive. Listeners in the city will inform us of who expresses sympathy here.”
“Do what you must,” Sheyqa Nizzira replied. “Just so the castle is kept in perfect order for someone to inherit one day. I think it shall be Reihan. For all he is but seven years old, he pleases me more every day. So manly, so clever!”
“As Your Exaltedness wishes, so shall it be done.”
The Sheyqa looked up when the eunuch didn’t leave. “Ayia, what else?”
“Only one thing, Majesty,” Arrif admitted reluctantly. “The count has been made five times. One hundred twenty-six dead of poison, two hundred sixty-nine of sword or axe.”
The Sheyqa swore luridly. The baby started to cry.
“A total,” Arrif concluded, staring at the carpet, “of three hundred ninety-five. One is missing.”
“Which?”
“The qabda’an believes it is the young man who had the temerity to apply to the Qoundi Ammar. Azzad, younger son of Yuzuf.”
“Cease this uproar at once!” the Sheyqa ordered Sayyida, who only bawled more lustily.
“A voice to be heard commanding a battle, Majesty,” Arrif observed.
“Are you trying to be funny? Call a servant and get this brat out of here. My sweet little Reihan never screamed so. I vow to Acuyib, if Sayyida is as noisy as her mother, she’ll end up silenced the same way.”
He summoned the nurse, who was so terrified she actually cast a glance at the bed rather than keeping her eyes strictly on her charge. The Sheyqa glanced at the eunuch, who nodded; a new nurse would be found by morning. When they were alone with Ammineh’s corpse, Nizzira said quietly, “Find Azzad. Find him, and kill him.”
“As Your Glorious Majesty wills it, so shall it be done.”
He could stay, and die. He could flee, and live.
If he stayed, he could accuse the Sheyqa in public and have all know what had been done to the al- Ma’aliq.
Which everybody would know anyway. And nothing would be done about it. The Sheyqa was the Sheyqa.
If he fled, he could establish himself—somewhere, somehow—and one day take his vengeance.
Which was precisely what the Sheyqa feared and why he would be hunted.
He had nothing. With the deaths of the al-Ma’aliq, he
But the thought of Nizzira wondering—wondering for years, never safe, never at rest, always wondering when and where and how Azzad al-Ma’aliq would strike—filled him with hot, vicious glee. He must survive.
Khamsin snorted softly, as if to remind him that they were still in the capital city of Rimmal Madar and within easy reach of the Sheyqa. Revenge was for the future—if Azzad lived that long.
And if living required money, vengeance required a fortune.
In pearls, perhaps?
Two hours later, so covered in midden filth that Khamsin’s nostrils flared in disgust, Azzad had the pearl necklace tucked once more in his sash.
It lacked several hours till dawn, and in those hours he could be halfway to the western coast. Instead, he turned south. South, to The Steeps that marked the border of Rimmal Madar and the Gabannah Chaydann—the Devil’s Graveyard. No one would ever look for him there.
In the city of Dayira Azreyq, dawn was stained red-brown. All that morning people muffled their coughing, shuttered windows in vain against thick drifting smoke, and thanked Acuyib that the only fires in their own homes were in ovens and lamps. Anyone who had cut himself anytime in the past week sent up similar praise that the wound was not a sword or an axe through the chest. And those with sicknesses of the belly or bowels paused in their misery to be grateful that only spoiled meat or too much wine afflicted them, and not the Sheyqa’s poison.
In the way of great cities, small words traveled quickly. A servant, a day laborer, a lover sneaking out a back door, a cook venturing early to the markets—small words, they were,
Dayira Azreyq came alive more slowly than usual, but it did come alive; and for all that nearly a thousand al-Ma’aliq had died the night before, it was a day like any other—all its inhabitants furtively thankful for another day of life.
