Ghost Nails (4 page)

“I see,” I said, chilled. “Perhaps it is just as well
Kamal is in love with such a foolish woman. Else he might have
efficiently murdered the Hakim under my roof, and I would be
ruined.”

“Aye,” said Caina. “But you’re clear of it now. I
doubt Korim will come to the House of Agabyzus again for a few
weeks, and I think Kamal will soon lose patience and simply kill
Korim this very night.”

I considered this for a moment.

“You are telling me this for a reason,” I said.

“Does Korim deserve to die?” said Caina.

“I have been paying him bribes for years,” I said,
“but he has never made trouble for me, and even aided me a few
times. I would not say that he is a good man…but he certainly does
not deserved to be murdered so his adulterous wife can claim his
wealth.”

“Will you help me save his life?” said Caina.

“Why do you care?” I said. “He’s not a Brotherhood
slaver or an Alchemist. A magistrate in the Padishah’s government,
yes, but he is not that powerful.”

“Because if we save his life,” said Caina, voice
quiet and hard, “he will owe you a favor…and we may need that in
days to come.”

Her tone unsettled me further. “What do you
mean?”

“Istarinmul is a pot upon a fire, and it is going to
boil over soon,” said Caina. “Not tomorrow. Not next month, likely.
But within the next few years. The Padishah has not been seen in
public since before the war with the Empire, and his sons and heirs
have vanished. The price of slaves has exploded, and the
Brotherhood of Slavers is making themselves more and more
unpopular. You’re not the only woman who has had family kidnapped.
The southern emirs are furious at the Brotherhood, and the Grand
Wazir is more and more unpopular.” She leaned closer, her voice
little more than a whisper. “And there is the great sorcerous work
Grand Master Callatas plans with the wraithblood.”

She had not told me all the details, for the simple
fact that what I did not know could not be tortured out of me by
the Padishah’s secret police. But she had hinted, and I had put her
hints together. Callatas, the Grand Master of the College of
Alchemists, was planning something awful. Something as terrible as
the day of the golden dead when the dead had risen to attack the
living, animated by the golden fire that had filled the sky. After
the day I had learned of Bahlar’s death and the day Ulvan had taken
my sons, that had been the single most terrifying day of my life. I
had been sure that the end of the world had come, that the Living
Flame had turned his back upon the world of men and handed us over
to the dead as punishment for our sins. Instead, Caina had told me,
the golden dead had been the work of a mad sorceress.

And from what she had hinted, the thing that Callatas
planned was even worse.

“There are dark days coming,” said Caina, “and when
they arrive, we’ll need as many friends as we can get. Someday we
will have the chance to stop Callatas…for if we fail, he will
unleash a disaster at least as bad as the fall of Iramis.”

I had seen the mural in the Tarshahzon Gardens, the
great painting depicting Callatas on the day he had destroyed
Iramis one hundred and fifty years ago. According to the tales,
Iramis had been a city of beauty and strength and wonder, home to a
quarter of a million people, and Callatas had burned them all in a
single moment.

I thought of such flames sweeping through Istarinmul,
of my sons dying in the wrath of a mad sorcerer, and I
shuddered.

“What would you ask of me?” I said.

“Tonight is Korim’s birthday,” said Caina. “He will
hold a feast in his mansion, inviting whatever nobles and
Alchemists who will deign to accept his invitation, along with the
merchants under his jurisdiction in the Cyrican Bazaar.”

“I know,” I said. “He does it every year.” I had
attended some of the feasts. They were boring, tedious affairs,
with the merchants maneuvering for Korim’s favor, and Korim
maneuvering for the favor of those who outranked him. Even when I
did not attend, I always made sure to send a gift and a note of
congratulations.

“Tonight,” said Caina, “Dinaka and Kamal are going to
poison Korim. They will lace either his food or his drink with a
poison of surpassing lethality. He will die in considerable pain a
few hours after he consumes it. I need you to warn him about
it.”

“Why me?” I said. “Why not you?”

“Three reasons,” said Caina, counting them off on her
fingers. “First, an anonymous letter or message wouldn’t work. He
would assume someone was trying to frighten him. Second, if you
save his life, you will gain his trust and favor in the future.
Third, I’ve spent the last three days infiltrating the workers and
slaves preparing his feast…and the nature of my disguise means that
I cannot warn him. He would not believe me.” She shook her head.
“If I had chosen a different disguise…well, what’s done is
done.”

“Do you know what, specifically, that Kamal and
Dinaka intend to poison?” I said.

Caina shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Korim is a
glutton, as you know better than I do, and his birthday shall be a
festival to that particular vice. There will be course after course
and toast after toast. A hundred different opportunities for Kamal
to slip his poison into Korim’s food or drink.”

“The poison,” I said. “What is it?”

“Powerful,” said Caina. “But such a powerful venom
has a downside. It has a noticeable foul taste and unpleasant odor.
Kamal will have to conceal it in a heavily spiced dish, or a
particularly strong liquor. If he tried to conceal it in, say, one
of Novaya’s cinnamon cakes, the taste would be noticeable at
once.”

“That could be a problem,” I said. “This is
Istarinmul. Most of our dishes have powerful spices.”

“You see the difficulty, then,” said Caina. “We have
to be vigilant. When I spot the poisoned dish, I shall warn you,
and you can denounce it to Korim. I will be there to aid you, if I
can, but you shall have to convince Korim.” She hesitated. “Can you
do it? If you do not wish to do it, I understand, and I can
arrange…”

“No,” I said. “You are right. I do not want to do
this, but…it must be done. And I am the best one to do it.”

“Very well,” said Caina, pushing away from the table.
“I will see you at Korim’s mansion tonight.”

“Who will you be disguised as?” I said. “A mercenary
guard? A merchant?”

Caina grinned. “Not quite. You’ll see.”

***

I do not like being a widow, and I wish my husband
were still alive.

That said, widowhood had one advantage. It is very
easy to dress for formal occasions when one’s choices are limited
to black. When I was younger, I would have spent hours selecting
the proper dress and headscarf and jewelry. Now I simply tied my
black hair into a long braid, donned a black dress, a black
headscarf, sandals, and a belt, a sheathed dagger clipped to it
since no one in Istarinmul went unarmed. A bit of makeup and
perfume, and I was ready.

I set off for the Wazirs’ Quarter, which was east of
the Cyrican Quarter and north of the Tower Quarter and the Old
Quarter. The great emirs and Alchemists and merchants dwelled in
the Emirs’ and Masters’ and Alchemists’ Quarters. Merchants and
craftsmen congregated in the Cyrican Quarter and the Old Quarter,
while watchmen made their home in the Tower Quarter. The Wazirs’
Quarter housed the mid-ranking magistrates of the Padishah’s
government, those who made enough from bribes and rents to afford a
mansion but not one of the grand palaces of the Emirs’ Quarter.

Nonetheless, Korim’s mansion was opulent. It was five
stories of gleaming stone within a courtyard surrounded by a low
ornamental wall. Rows of empty sedan chairs and their slave bearers
waited in the streets, while less wealthy merchants like myself
made their way on foot. Four watchmen in leather and chain mail
stood watch at the gate, admitting the guests. Korim was not
important enough to warrant of bodyguard of Immortals, which was a
relief. The closest I had ever gotten to an Immortal was during
Ulvan’s grand banquet, when I had been helping Caina to rescue my
sons, and I had no desire to see an Immortal again.

The guards admitted me, and I walked into the
courtyard. Bonfires burned in low stone rings, providing light as
the sun sank below the mansions to the west, and long wooden tables
and benches waited for the guests. More of Korim’s watchmen stood
here and there, swords and clubs at their belts. The guests stood
in groups, speaking in low voices. Slaves led them to their seats,
and a fussy house slave in a fine gray robe led me to my table. It
was, I noted with amusement, rather far from the high table at the
mansion’s doors.

I looked at the high table and spotted Kamal. He,
too, wore the gray robe of one of Korim’s house slaves, and for a
terrible moment I thought he would recognize me. But the light
within the boarding house had been bad, I had been wearing a mask,
and he had glimpsed me for only an instant before Caina hit him
with a throwing knife. Most likely he would not recognize me.

Most likely.

He walked towards the high table, and I wondered how
anyone could mistake him for a slave. The man moved with the
efficient grace and balance of a predator. Caina herself moved in
much the same way in a crisis. Kamal stopped near the high table,
speaking to a young woman in a brilliant gown of gold. She was
dark-skinned but paler than most Istarish women, which meant she
was likely Cyrican. She wore jewelry, a lot of jewelry, a golden
choker with rubies around her throat, rings on each of her fingers,
glittering earrings, and a diadem over her headscarf. This had to
be Dinaka, Korim’s wife. She looked over the gathering with barely
concealed disdain.

Then she shared a look with Kamal, and the heat
between them was obvious. I wonder how Korim had possibly
overlooked their affair. Whatever virtues that Korim possessed,
keen perception was likely not one of them.

I looked for Caina but saw no sign of her. Not that
it meant anything. If she was using a disguise I had never seen
before, I might walk past her without noticing. The woman had such
a gift for disguise that sometime I wondered if she was one of the
shapeshifting djinn of ancient legend.

I decided to keep an eye upon Kamal. The Kindred
assassin was the key to this entire mess. I racked my brain, trying
to decide how he might employ the poison. Caina had said it would
be liquid, not a powder, so he could try to pour it into wine. Of
course, any number of fine dishes were served in liquid sauces, and
they were spicy enough to conceal the poison’s taste. I supposed
Kamal might have a confederate among the slaves of Korim’s
household, one that might already have prepared the poisoned dish.
If that was true, then it wouldn’t matter how much I watched
Kamal…

A booming voice interrupted my dark musings.

“Welcome, my friends, welcome!” Korim hobbled from
the doors of the mansion, leaning upon his thick cane, his scribe
and his bodyguards trailing after him. “Thank you for your gifts
and prayers upon the day of my birth. I bid you all welcome to my
home, and urge you to enjoy yourselves.” Dinaka walked to her
husband’s side, smiling at him. I wondered if Korim recognized the
smile as false. Likely not, given that he didn’t even seem to
notice her. “We have entertainment and music and food. Please, sit
and let the feast begin.”

I thought he looked…happy. How odd. He was a corrupt
magistrate of the Padishah’s government. Yet I supposed many of the
men here were his friends. I looked at Dinaka, and wondered what it
would be like to be married to a man like Korim. Being ignored by a
wealthy man who let me do whatever I wanted did not seem like such
a dire fate. Perhaps that was the insult. Maybe Dinaka could not
stand to be ignored.

We rose and applauded our host, and then I took my
seat with the other guests. At my table were other minor merchants,
those who had licenses for booths in the Cyrican Bazaar or shops in
the surrounding streets. I knew all of them and was on good terms
with most of them – merchants enjoyed coffee, after all. The sounds
of drums and flutes rang out as musicians played in the corners of
the courtyard. A double line of women came from the mansion doors,
clad in scanty costumes that revealed rather more than they
concealed. They began to dance, moving their limbs in time to the
music, spinning and gyrating. I thought that in poor taste, but
most of the guests were men.

And then I spotted Caina among the dancers.

She wore a skirt of red silk knotted over her left
thigh, leaving her left leg bare. An intricate net of red silken
strips encircled her neck and chest and did a marginal job of
concealing her breasts, leaving her back and shoulders and stomach
bare. She wore ornate jewelry upon her wrists and ears and ankles,
and a black wig over her close-cropped hair. Her face had been
painted with elaborate makeup, her eyes lined, her lips reddened,
her eyelids painted a shade of blue that matched her eyes. She
moved in an intricate dance in time to the drum, the skirt flaring
around her as she spun to expose her legs. I saw the definition of
the muscles in her arms and legs, the strength in her
movements.

I had expected her to disguise herself as a merchant
or a guard, not a dancing girl. I could not imagine how she could
wear such a revealing costume in front of so many staring eyes. And
the eyes did stare. Most of the men near her watched with open
admiration. I had worn a costume like that when I helped her regain
my sons, and the embarrassment had almost been crippling.

Yet it was an admirable disguise, was it not? Who
among the emirs and the Alchemists and the merchants would expect a
dancing girl to be a spy? Or the most wanted master thief in the
city, for that matter?