Shattered Pillars (16 page)

When she came to the broad boulevard upon which the palace fronted, she found an exterior stair she could drop to and descended. She’d not be late: the fight had lasted a hundred heartbeats, no more. But she was in disarray—sweat-soaked under her cuirass and helm, the quilted cloth of her arming coat squishing unpleasantly with every movement. As she reached the street, Samarkar stole a glance at her palms: scraped, bloody, the fingertips chafed raw.

Well, if Uthman Caliph wanted a martial female dancing in attendance, that was what he’d get. And not the high-court version, perfumed and jeweled, either.

Samarkar stood for a moment, still breathing deeply.
Rahazeen. Here.
Temur was in danger, and Hrahima, and Brother Hsiung. And all of Ato Tesefahun’s household too. Her feet itched, her body half-turned with the desire to run back to Ato Tesefahun’s house and make sure that everyone was safe—to give them the warning. But private appointments with the caliph were not plucked in meadows. She carried paper and a stick of pigment. Perhaps she could disguise her voice enough to hire one of the loitering messengers near the palace doors to run a letter back to Brother Hsiung. If she wrote it in Song, the contents should be safe enough from casual prying.

No: she’d send the message from the palace. Surely they would accommodate her. Surely they would also read her letter, but being attacked by Rahazeen in the very streets of Asitaneh was nothing she needed to hide from the caliph in order to convince him that the threat was serious and Temur worthy of his support.

She strode up the boulevard, projecting every featherweight of boldness and bravado she could muster. People gave way before her again; she’d at least regained that much presence. She’d have to muster the rest before she reached the caliph’s chambers.

It gave her something to focus on when her mind wanted to chase itself in circles of worry for Temur.
He can protect himself. And if he cannot, our companions
certainly
can.

It didn’t help.

She took the broad steps up to the palace gate at a jog, strips of lacquered wood rattling flatly with every bounce. A portico ostensibly protected the doorway, but it was high and at this hour the sun shone under it, sweltering on the heads of a score of
kapikulu.
An enormous arched doorframe loomed open overhead: Uthman Caliph had faith in the peace of his city, or faith in the strength of his guards. Or he was simply aware of the emotional power over his people that was offered by the pose of strength and security. No weak king would leave his door standing wide.

That appearance of openness was abrogated by the stiff ritual posture of the
kapikulu
who flanked it, cerulean coats brilliant on the pale stone as patches of sky glimpsed through cloud. Samarkar found it effective nonetheless and noted it for her own applications, when a time and place should be found. For now, she paused at the top of the steps, hands on hips, and waited.

A doorkeeper lurked within the shaded arch, perched on a folding-framed sling of natural canvas. He was a snarled-looking little man with crooked, skinny legs and arms that seemed to stick out every which way, but the wiry muscle knotted across his calves and shoulders bulged when he scraped and made a courtesy. He wore nothing but a white loincloth, and while Samarkar did not envy his horny bare feet the searing touch of the stone steps and threshold, she would have given a great deal to be out of the black oven of her armor.

Ungrateful, when it had saved her the bite of a thrown dagger. But if she then roasted to death because of it, there would be little time for her gratitude.

The doorkeeper looked up at her inquiringly.

“Samarkar,” she said. “A Wizard of Tsarepheth. I am summoned to an appointment with his serene Excellency, Uthman Caliph Fourteenth.”

When he heard a woman’s voice, the doorman did not react.
Kapikulu
were raised from a young age to be stoic and impassive, and a caliph’s doorkeeper must certainly be able to maintain his composure in the face of all things … but Samarkar suspected in this case he’d been warned in advance. Perversely, this made her more uneasy—but if the caliph wanted her visit to go unremarked, surely he would have had her present herself at the servant’s entrance rather than walking in the front door like a visiting queen, albeit one inexplicably shorn of her retinue.

“You are to be made welcome,” the doorman said. He straightened at last from his obeisance—a good thing, as it had been inspiring Samarkar to sympathetic cramps in her thighs and calves to watch him. With a hooking gesture, he summoned a boy of middle years from the shadows behind the door. This bird-eyed brown child wore a linen tunic that fell halfway down his thighs. He went barefoot, his hair cropped short below his ears. The doorman laid a hand on the child’s shoulder. “Show the Wizard Samarkar to the Chamber of Crocuses.”

“Please follow me, sir,” the boy said. He bowed low, leaving Samarkar chuckling and striding to keep up in his wake. Of course she was a
sir;
she was tall and wore armor and walked the street alone, and no matter that a woman’s voice had issued from under the helm.

She considered for a few moments whether she was being led to the slaughter, but the room he left her in was a small, pleasant reception chamber. That did not preclude its becoming an abattoir, but Samarkar rather thought the caliph would have caused the silk rugs from Song and Rasa to be taken up if he intended to have her cut down in her blood. She requested a moment to scribe her note to Brother Hsiung, and the page promised to see it delivered. Then he left her with grapes and with wine and water—cold enough to chill the pricy glass goblet that it stood in—and an assurance that she would be shown to the caliph as soon as possible.

Samarkar raised the visor of her helm to drink—mostly water, and a little wine—and felt her dizziness and exhaustion recede almost as soon as the cup was lowered again.
The desert is waiting to kill you. Just as surely as the winter and the cold mountains are—or your brother the emperor, or the Rahazeen—though the mechanism may be different.

One could forget that in the walled gardens of Ato Tesefahun. But it would not be prudent to allow one’s self to forget it for long.

Predictably, some time elapsed. Now that her battle excitement was ebbing, Samarkar ached from her skinned hands to the bruise over her spine, and every muscle in her body was issuing a resounding protest of ill and unaccustomed use. She occupied herself waiting for her arming coat to dry upon her skin—or as much as it would, with the armor strapped on over it—and with drinking more water and examining the contents of the room. As she had noted upon first entering, the carpets were rich, and layered deeply so they formed an uneven surface for walking on, making Samarkar doubly glad that she had no plans to engage in a swordfight here.

Other than that, the furnishings were opulent and well maintained, if obviously somewhat worn. The windows were shaded by the louvered blinds that were so common here under the killing Uthman sun, but a warm breeze and slanted slats of light still eased through them. Two daybeds heaped with cushions and robes and furs were separated by the low table that had received the fruit and wine. They had been refinished and reupholstered, but Samarkar could make out marks of wear beneath the gilt on their wooden frames: rich, but old. The caliph was not the sort of person who had to buy his furniture.

After the climb and the running, her feet hurt too. She sat on the nearer divan and took a grape, rolling it firm and cool between her fingertips. She had just popped it into her mouth—a tiny explosion of crisp sweetness backed by the crunch of pips—when the door opened again, and a vigorous-seeming man with iron-colored streaks in his beard and hair entered. Bareheaded, he was clad in a simple white kaftan that fell open over his tunic and trousers. He came with no entourage and no fanfare.

Samarkar was not often taken aback by the dance of politics, but she spent a full three heartbeats blinking at the newcomer before slamming her visor closed, leaping to her feet, and immediately dropping to her knees again. She bowed her head and stammered.

“Your serene Excellency!”

He waited long enough for her knees to burn and her neck to ache. But Samarkar had the advantage of the helm, and if she stretched her eyes upward, she could glimpse his face through its visor.

The caliph was smiling.

At last he said, “Stand, Wizard Samarkar,” and slid the bolt of the door behind himself.

She did, working to show none of the nervousness that made her heart race and her hands tremble. A fresh crop of sweat seeded itself throughout her already-itchy underthings. Now that they stood on the level, she could see she was of a height with the caliph: whether that was an advantage or would make him more aggressive, she did not yet know him well enough to say.

But not only was he confident enough in his own strength to leave his palace door open to the street … he was confident enough to bolt himself into a small room with a wizard. Or did he even think of her as a wizard? Perhaps he only imagined he had bolted himself into a boudoir with a woman, weak and mild.

Well, kings had also died in that manner.

He regarded her curiously, little threat in his expression. From this close—if they both reached out to the span of their arms they could have taken each other’s hands—she could see the bushy, aggressive curve of his eyebrows, the way the wiry hair had been combed out to accentuate the chipped-looking edge on his nose.

“Raise your visor,” he said. “Wizard Samarkar.”

Swallowing, she hooked her thumbs under the edge and raised it. The cool air that rushed in allowed her to breathe more easily, but the constriction of her chest counteracted that.

The caliph looked at her frankly, curiously—but briefly, before averting his eyes. “If you would be more comfortable,” he said, “you may remove the helm. I promise to respect your modesty.”

“Excellency,” Samarkar muttered. A suggestion from a king was no such thing, and so she lowered her chin and fumbled with the buckles that Temur had fastened for her. She lifted the helm off, feeling strands that had worked loose from her braid lift and pull with it. The bone-dry air that tickled her scalp was not cool, but it evaporated the lingering sweat enough to seem so. The caliph kept his eyes averted. Just as well; Samarkar had no illusions that she was currently impersonating a ravishing beauty.

He gestured to the daybeds. “Sit and drink with me.”

Samarkar steeled herself—and if he did make a direct proposition, what then?—but he settled himself across from her, on the other divan. He indicated with a hand jeweled only by two tasteful rings that she should pour. She blinked; of course he would not serve her with his own hands. But she had not been searched and could have any venom at all pressed between her fingers or slipped up her sleeve. The caliph was either exceedingly foolish or exceedingly brave, and foolish men did not usually live into their seventh decade—at a guess—still as reigning kings.

She poured the caliph his own wine, unwatered this time. She set a glass before him. He raised it, toasted her silently with his eyes still cast politely to one side, and drank a healthy swallow. He took a grape and popped it into his mouth, closing his eyes in pleasure as he chewed.

“There,” he said, putting the glass down again precisely, turning it with his fingertips so the square-trimmed base aligned with the tiles of the tabletop. Samarkar had barely touched her lips with hers. “We have shared a meal, and you are a guest in my house. Does that assure you that you will come to no harm at my hands today, Wizard Samarkar?”

He was working to disarm her—and succeeding. But Samarkar bowed her head in something that could be interpreted as a complaisant nod.

The caliph said, “It would be best if your armor were in some disarray when you left, good wizard.”

She felt her smile press the edge of the glass she had raised again to her lips as if enjoying the aroma of the wine. In truth it was very fine, but not fine enough to be worth letting her guard down. “So,” she answered, discarding the glass on the low table, “this
is
a stratagem.”

“We are who we are,” the caliph answered. “Would it be possible for there to be anything else between us?”

Now she let him see the smile in full. “I doubt I would be to your taste,” she said. “Not when you have your pick of perfumed harem girls.”

“There is more to worthy womanhood than perfume,” he replied, undaunted. He settled himself against the back of the divan and crossed one long leg over the other. “Ysmat of the Beads is not said to have been known for her beauty. And yet she is renowned above all women.”

Samarkar turned her wineglass again. “Is that blasphemy, your serene Excellency?”

His teeth glittered in his beard. “Perhaps a little. But yes, this is a stratagem. My advisors will be certain of it, but—as in so many things—in this it is the appearance of the thing that matters.”

“And so, wine in the afternoon and the
appearance
of an assignation.”

“Drink deep,” he said. “You should have it on your breath when you leave.”

She obeyed. Three savoring swallows, and then she set the glass down again. She needed a clear head, not one wine-muddled.

“You sent us away.”

“I did that.”

“What if I could offer you Asmaracanda back? Not for troops, your Excellency, nor any monetary support. But merely in return for the acknowledgment of Re Temur as Temur Khan, as a rightful claimant to the Khaganate.”

“Not even Temur Khagan?” the caliph asked. “Just Khan?”

“I thought I was pushing to get you past Khanzadeh,” she admitted artlessly, with all her art behind it.

She must have hit the right note, because the caliph laughed. And then, with a canny look, he said, “Asmaracanda? Then you do not know that I have already taken it.”

Samarkar had the experience to keep her face impassive, but there was nothing to be gained by trying to hide that he’d scored when he knew it already. “The news had not reached me.”