The Necromancer's Grimoire (25 page)

She brought her eyes back to the apprentice. She could not risk a tendril to his heart. He would see it or feel it. Instead she tried to read his eyes. Years of practice as a servant had taught her to anticipate a master's desires. Instructions always appeared in a man's eyes before his mouth would order them. Moods could be detected in the cast of the eyes and the planes of the face. Nadira had mastered these skills as a child long before she opened any of her master's books.

Assad was wary and surprised. She saw he was eager to believe he was being rewarded. His face was carefully composed with the face that he turned to society, but his greedy eyes told her he deserved such a gift.

William bowed low and removed his cap. His golden hair caught the light from the lamps as intended and created a halo effect around him. His fair skin was flushed with the adventure. Nadira smiled behind her veils.
He is beautiful.
She glanced at the apprentice.
Yes. He thinks so too.

“I have been sent here by Evren Farshad, the great Padishah's magus” he said in Latin. “I have been instructed to bring you this woman.”

Assad moved his arms and tented his fingers on the scrolls that were spread upon the table. He regarded Nadira with curiosity and she whispered to William.
“Explain quickly.”

William nodded to Assad. “She will recite poetry. She has the voice of sweet birds, and knows a thousand verses. Your master also said that her beauty may entice you to taste something different.” He paused for effect, “Yet if you still prefer familiar flavors…he offers you,” William made a flourish across his body with both hands that suggested he was also available as a gift. They both felt relief when the apprentice smiled with genuine pleasure. William cued her with an elbow.

Nadira cleared her throat and began in Arabic with a verse from a Persian love poem that she only knew in translation. She deliberately changed the pronouns to suggest that William was the subject. She watched his face to see if the apprentice was intrigued. He was.

William saw it, too. He continued in Latin, “You are greatly honored, Bey, and your master desires that you be pleasured with his gift.” Assad moved from behind the table. His feet were bare. He did not speak as he moved by them, and his eyes did not leave William's face until he reached the door. He opened it a crack and called for his servant, then turned again to William. “Have her continue,” he said softly.

Nadira pitched her voice as low and sensual as possible, like the oil in the burning lamps. She chose a different poem to emphasize the quality of her repertoire.

The servant returned with a silver tray. Wine in a pitcher. Two cups. A bowl of grapes and dates. Nadira continued with her recitations, taking tiny steps backwards until she was standing unnoticed against the wall. She sent a tendril out the window. Montrose was there. Ready. She felt his relief. He had been waiting for her contact.

Assad and William were looking at scrolls, their heads together discussing Plato. William sipped from his cup. Assad's eyes had grown darker as he became aroused by the conversation and the wine. It is hard to resist beauty and truth. If Assad decided to take the next step, she might be quickly dismissed. Nadira glanced about the room making plans. The window was open, the guards could be summoned easily if a cry was loud enough.

She began on a new poem and sent a tendril to Corbett.

He lounged in a great room. Braziers burned in the corners providing coals for the hookahs that were scattered throughout. Beautiful women from the Caucasus moved gracefully among the cushions and the smokers and carried trays of delicate sweets. Others carried pitchers of drink. Sumptuous fabrics in all colors were draped across divans and low stools. The ministers of court and several foreign merchants relaxed in various poses, enjoying the luxuries of Turkish hospitality. A few women were already being fondled by the Rus and the Tartar merchants. Nadira could look only through Corbett's eyes, and his eyes avoided the women. They were focused more directly on the necromancer.

Evren Farshad was dressed in his richest caftan. Gold threads were embroidered at each seam, and a rainbow of colors bloomed from a garden of embroidered flowers on his wide sash. He wore an impressive headpiece that made him appear taller. In his hand he held his staff. He was talking to the Rus traders, but his eyes were fixed on two tall blonde women behind them. Corbett refused to look at them, so Nadira prodded him with her tendril.

How can you tell me when to take the book if you will not even look at the women?

He responded reluctantly. He turned his eyes to Evren and his gifts. Nadira studied the women carefully. They were a matched pair, dressed alike and standing a head taller than most of the men in the room. Their breasts were large and held in place with winding cloths that went over their shoulders and around their ribs. Red silk skirts covered their hips and legs. Their feet were bare. Their experienced eyes took in the room around them. Nadira knew they did not know any of the languages being spoken. It mattered not. They knew their purpose and it was the same in all languages.

Corbett turned away as the Rus trader lifted one of the skirts to expose one of the women's long thighs.

She made Corbett look about the room to find the host. There he was. On a large cushioned bench with his best friends around him. They laughed as they smoked. There was no hurry to get to the many servant women. That would be the climax of the gathering, and they had just begun the pleasures of smoke and drink and food, but she did not want the evening to last into the wee hours. Working through Corbett was tedious. It would be better to get a tendril in the necromancer.

Nadira sent a thin silver thread through Corbett's chest and then snaked it behind the necromancer and hovered the shining end near his ear. The magus was eager, and impatient.
Good.
She waited, and when he finally reached his hand out to touch one of the women, she threaded her tendril into his body. As she had hoped, he perceived the entry as pleasure in the touch, and his mind was full of thoughts that had nothing to do with his work.

She suggested that instead of waiting for the other men to begin to fondle the slave women in the public area, he take his gifts to an empty room. There were many smaller chambers off the long corridor of the meeting room. She told him he was young enough to take his pleasure more than once this evening. She sent the tendril lower to intensify that thought.

She was rewarded with stiff agreement. The necromancer politely dismissed the Rus trader and moved to the door, the two women in tow. Nadira made sure that Corbett noticed his departure.

Corbett pulled away from the wall where he had been standing, watching the crowd. She prompted him move to the other side of the room. He asked her,
If he leaves, how can I watch him?

I have a tendril in him.
She assured him. Corbett's relief was palpable
.

The necromancer had, indeed, found a private room. The women were experienced and had clearly worked as a team before. Nadira was confident she would be informed of their progress with their new master as they worked their syncopated wiles on him. She brought herself back to the apprentice, willing to feel neither the necromancer's pleasures nor Corbett's discomfort. Instead she tried to remember a long poem and kept her voice low and sweet as she recited by rote.

William glanced at her over the rim of his cup. His eyes held a question,
how much longer?

Assad must place the book on the table. Touch his elbow.

William made a slight nod and Nadira readied another tendril. He said something to Assad and as he did he laid his hand lightly on the other man's arm. Nadira snaked a thread into the apprentice at that moment. Assad blinked and looked up. His eyes met hers, but just for an instant. Her tendril told her he had felt it, recognized the sensation of being tapped by a thread, but dismissed her as incapable of being the sender. He looked at William and sent his own tendril into him, seeking the source. The jolt from William's body caused Nadira to stumble over the next line of the poem.

William was thoroughly searched. Nadira quickly withdrew her tendril from William's heart before the apprentice could detect it.

She paused in her recitation, ready to call for Montrose. Through the thread she had in the apprentice, she inserted William's own love of literature. She flooded him with images of William's scriptorium, with his passion for words and ideas. She hoped Assad's tendril would recognize the flood of sensation as William…not
her. She waited.

Assad moved to another shelf and slid a scroll from its holder and presented it to the scribe. His soft smile told her she had been successful. She looked around at the library. His pride in his books and scrolls was another weapon in her arsenal. She kept up the low murmur of Rumi's love poems, but her suggestions were no longer needed. Assad was growing warmer and more infatuated. It was not William's glowing hair and golden eyes, or even the warm scent of sandalwood. It was the books.

Outside Montrose was becoming concerned. She reassured him, told him to stand down for now. A check on the necromancer suggested that she needed to work harder on Assad. It would not take long for his master to finish. She put a hand to her head with the effort of keeping all the men in order.

She thickened her tendril in Assad, hoping to glean more information about his duties. He would not be easy to break, and he would notice a powerful intrusion. He was near in power to his master.

The men raised their voices. She looked up. The poem faltered on her lips. They were not fighting…no…but they were excited. The Latin they shared as a common language was flying fast, but she caught “
Opus Majus”
and “Roger Bacon”. Both young men were waving their hands and their faces shone with joy. That Nadira had stopped reciting poetry was not even noticed. Assad was pulling scrolls from the holders and filling William's arms with them. She watched, incredulous, as Assad led him to his table and the two of them began to unroll the scrolls, setting smooth stones on the edges to hold them open. Assad said, “
Summa contra gentiles
” and tapped a book on the table “
Aquinas
”. William clapped his hands with glee and then went off in rapid Greek.

She touched the tendril inserted in the necromancer. He was fully engaged. She had a few minutes more. Less, if the two women began to touch him with more intent. Corbett had diverted his inquisitors to drink. Montrose was leaning so far on a limb she feared he would fall. The plan was not working. Assad was no closer to taking the book from his chest as when they first arrived.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the
Grimoire
instead. She thought about its knowledge, its purpose, its history.
Who are you?
She asked it directly. It opened to her questions through the tendril she had in the apprentice. Through Assad's mind she touched the wisdom of the ancient Persians. She saw the whirling dervishes, the Sufis. The book smiled at her and said,
This is what your heart says to me, Nadira the Reader: “It tells me that you wish to possess the pearl of divine knowledge: you ask that I either give it to you or sell it to you.”
The book waited for her reply.

She hesitated. She had not expected the book to speak to her.
I would that it be given to me. I have not the gold to buy it,
she answered.

Indeed
, the book said.
You cannot buy it, for the price is beyond gold, and yet if it is given to you, then you have not earned it. Cast yourself into the ocean that you may win the pearl of wisdom by waiting for it to form within the oyster.”

Nadira answered truthfully.
I have not the time to wait for a pearl to form.
She showed the
Grimoire
its master, panting and gasping among the discarded silks of the slave women.
I have mere minutes, if not seconds. He will cry out soon and that is when I must have you in my arms.
She felt the
Grimoire
reach inside her, feeling around her heart and sending shards of light through her mind. She slowly sank to her knees, unable to stand against its intrusion. Self-doubt began to color her thoughts.
It is eating me.
The book snaked its tendrils through her heart and found Montrose there, and William, and Kemaleddin. It stopped with the image of the
reis
and she felt its disapproval.
Ah,
it scolded,
you have broken his heart.

The
Grimoire
continued to course through her body, touching every part of her until it consumed every piece of information she possessed. She felt drained. The carpet on the floor called to her and she stretched out upon it, embracing its soft silk pile. Blinking her eyes felt like moving great stones. She would not be able to summon Montrose. No one could help her. Assad and William continued a spirited debate on the nature of God. Scrolls were unrolled and books were opened, their pages fanned across their covers as lamps were lowered to increase the light. Montrose would not enter the room without her signal.

Then the
Grimoire
stopped. All time stopped. Light and sound stopped. Images of Montrose in his tree stopped. The two scholars stopped mid-gesture, one scroll held high in the air.

She saw the necromancer freeze in place, his back arched in the final spasm that cleared his mind and deadened the tendril that connected him to his
Grimoire
.

Now you have eternity to form that pearl
,
Nadira the Reader
, the book said.

Nadira felt an enormous surge of energy. All that had been drained from her was returned double. She got to her feet, lightheaded and tingling from the charge. Assad and William remained frozen in place. She walked around them, searching their faces for some sign of sense. They were like statues of men. Her eyes were drawn to Assad's chest. The book was calling to her through the apprentice's caftan.