Dark Empress (27 page)

Khmun made that rasping, bubbling sound again. It was a laugh.

“Oh, Samir…”

Whatever had been the captain’s last planned words, however, would never be heard. With a rattling sound, Khmun passed to the other world, supported by the rail and his trusted Lieutenant. And now Samir had to do the worst thing imaginable: to tell the crew their captain had died.

Captain Samir of the Dark Empress, his face bleak and angry, bent and gathered up the body of the fallen captain.

“All free hands to the stern!”

Another death for which to repay Ma’ahd. The focus of the Dark Empress was about to narrow.

In which Asima progresses

The harem was a place of rules and discipline, but those rules changed depending on the position and rank of the occupant and, if one knew how to play the game well, they were surprisingly flexible.

Asima had learned early on in her days as an official concubine of the God-King that she had a great deal more freedom and authority than before, though the women who lived at this exalted rank took various differing viewpoints on their newfound power. Tanita, one of the other two women who had been chosen alongside Asima, seemed to drift happily along, content with her role and enjoying what freedoms she had. Sharra, as always, continued to complain about her captivity and seemed to have taken this authority and used it to separate herself from the others.

Asima saw in the relaxing of control the opportunity to advance.

It had taken her a couple of years to get to know all of the wives and concubines, their foibles and traits, and to work out exactly where in the line of seniority they all stood. This was only partially important to her plans, of course, since some who were considerably more senior than Asima were now old or ugly or both, and therefore posed no great threat to her… barring one.

Keshia was now sixty three and, frankly, not looking her best. Asima had initially placed her under the ‘people not to care about‘ heading, but had learned quickly that Keshia held a special place in the heart of the God-King. She had been his first wife and they had married before he had even ascended the high throne. He must have been so like Prince Ashar in those days.

Keshia, despite her age, was as much a threat as those eight years of chosen that followed Asima and the many that came before. And yet many of them were so mundane that they blended in with the wall decorations. There were, to Asima’s surprise, more than a hundred women in the harem that the King had apparently never sent for and who lived lives of anonymity and great freedom. It had been this that had given Asima her greatest idea.

There were one hundred and seventy of the God-King’s women in the harem. Of those, a little more than sixty ever actually saw him and those women were divided in Asima’s mind into those above her, those level with her and those beneath her.

The more than thirty women beneath her, she kept her eye on, just in case they decided to make a play. Of the others, six women Asima believed were as favoured as her in the God-King’s eyes, and only one of those was a wife rather than a concubine. The rest, eighteen women who outranked Asima, were all wives and, while a wife officially held higher rank than a concubine, such distinctions were quite blurred in the palace of Akkad.

Now, the only way to compete with the rest was to change her status completely, which meant either raising her own, or lowering that of those above her. Over the past six years, she had moved gradually up the ladder until it was often her that the God-King sent for when he needed companionship; moreover, flatteringly, it was as much her advice and conversation that he required as her beauty and her… other talents.

Now, however, she needed to become a wife. Once that happened, she would be perhaps tenth in line and would be in a position to jostle her way higher.

And so, here she was, strolling out of the great private palace at the centre of the complex, her hand resting lightly on the God-King’s arm. Timing was everything and it had taken every tool in her arsenal to keep the ruler of Pelasia busy until the appointed time. Finally, she had smiled and told him sweetly that she was ready to return to the harem now.

“What route shall we take, my dear?” the handsome man had asked. “The jasmine by the Loggia of the Winds is particularly fragrant at the moment.”

Asima had, as always, marshalled every argument and conceived of every possible problem before joining the God-King tonight. She shook her head quietly and, smiling, gestured out north.

“I would rather, if it suit your majesty, pass by the orchard. The smell of the lemon trees between the observatory and the harem is fresh and pleasing this time of year and, to visit the Loggia, we would have to pass the kitchens of the public palace at the time the slops are discarded.”

The God-King had laughed and squeezed her hand.

“Then the observatory and orchard it is. I might, if time allows, go inside and see what patterns the stars have formed for me tonight.”

She had smiled. That wouldn’t happen. Not tonight.

And so now they walked down a paved white path between rich lawns and toward the northernmost point of Akkad. Ahead, the great pentagonal towers of the palace walls rose up like the great horns of some silhouetted beast, the crown of its head formed by the dome of the observatory. Away to the left, beyond the citrus grove, stood the sombre bulk of the harem.

The moon was intermittently covered by scudding clouds that prevented too much silvery light from playing across the gardens and Asima had to narrow her eyes discretely to pick out any details on the observatory.

A relic from the days of the God-King’s grandfather, the observatory was a three storey structure of white marble and porphyry. Octagonal, each face was smooth, punctuated between floors with purple decoration and surmounted by a domed, grey roof with portions formed of delicate glass.

The ruler who had originally had the curious building constructed had been convinced that the stars held some power over events in the real world and that, if man only learned how to read their patterns, he could predict the future. It was a belief that was commonly held to be erroneous, though nobody would say so in relation to the God-King’s family.

Tonight, however, there was a certain ring of truth to this.

The observatory, if everything was going according to plan, would herald certain future trends and foretell at least one specific event.

They strode down the gentle slope from the palace toward the structure and its adjacent orchard, the King humming a tune that the musicians had played through dinner, while Asima smiled and kept herself as calm and steady as possible. Periodically she looked up with her head lowered, casting surreptitious glances at the observatory. There was nothing to be seen there. Not a surprise. There would be in a minute, but not if the God-King kept up that irritating humming.

“Listen, majesty. Do you hear the gentle song of the nightingale?”

The God-King tilted his head slightly.

“You must have good hearing, Asima? I hear nothing.”

“It is faint, majesty, but beautiful.”

Her companion fell silent, listening intently for the birdsong that existed only in Asima’s head. At least he was quiet. He may be handsome and kind, but the ageing ruler of Pelasia had what Asima considered to be some of the world’s most irritating habits. She would cope with them in return for the power they brought, but really she would have to do something about changing him once she was in charge.

They approached the marble octagon, moving now into the shadow cast by the palace’s high walls. The paved route would take them around the building to the door on the north side and, from there they could walk across the springy turf between the citrus trees back to the harem.

Well, she could. The God-King would be busy.

Almost there and Asima found she was holding her breath. Silently, she admonished herself and tried to relax. Appearance was all too important right now.

And it was with a happy smile and an easy pace that she and the God-King rounded the octagon and came face-to-face with the couple in the shadowed doorway. The God-King was so startled that he almost cried out for the guards, one of which would be patrolling the wall top nearby.

Asima allowed her face to slip into the practiced look of horrified disbelief at the sight of Sh’a’lah, the King’s second wife, locked in the embrace of one of the black, white and gold-clad Royal Guard.

The God-King’s face was everything that Asima had hoped. If she picked apart his expression, she could find horror, anger, betrayal, disbelief and sadness though, as she watched, the proportions of those emotions changed in a split second from heavy disbelief to extraordinary anger.

The couple, tightly held, took a second to notice the God-King. Sh’a’lah had been so involved in their kiss that she had been making strange squeaking noises. As the full knowledge of what had befallen them spread across her face, the second most powerful woman in the harem, five years older than Asima and a born princess in her own right, fell to her knees, her forehead touching the floor, abasing herself before her master.

It was impossible in that frantic moment to identify the soldier’s expression, as most of his face was hidden in shadow and they only saw a flash of his eyes and a brief blur of his skin before he turned and ran, silently, into the shadows of the orchard.

The God-King, despite his fury, ignored the soldier as he ran and, instead, turned his gaze downward to glare angrily at the woman on the floor.

“Sh’a’lah?”

The woman made whimpering noises but no identifiable words came out. She would be terrified beyond her wits’ end. The penalty for adultery among the God-King’s women was to be crushed to death. There would be no trial, no alternative, and no hope of reprieve.

A small part of Asima that was still the girl that had played jump-rope and raced around the roofs of M’Dahz with the brothers felt sorry for Sh’a’lah and the fate she now faced…

… but the part of her that mattered mentally ticked a box on a chart and shuffled names on a list.

She held her silence, maintained her look of shock and horror, and stepped back, disassociating herself from events as the God-King grasped his second wife’s wrist and hauled her to her feet, his face white with rage. Instead, she thought deeply about what she would need to do now, once the God-King had brought the guards and had the woman detained.

It had taken Asima three months to find a guard who was greedy and amoral enough to consider enticing the queen and playing the gigolo with her. It was a dangerous task and she had been paying the soldier a small fortune each week for his continued help and his silence. Of course, she had left nothing with him that could be proof of her complicity if he had spoken of her requests, but it was better that he hadn’t, for otherwise plans would not have been brought to fruition and this would never have occurred tonight.

There would be two or three days of chaos in the harem and the palace as the King raged. Sh’a’lah would be repeatedly interrogated and tortured until her nails were gone, her fingers broken, her nose slit and all manner of horrible acts perpetrated. She would be able to say no more than that the guard had wooed her and she had accepted his attentions, for that was exactly what had happened.

The gentle manoeuvring and prodding that had come from Asima would be forgotten as mere generalities in harem life. She had been careful to be as subtle as a woman could be. No… no trace would lead back to her.

The only loose end left would be the young guard who had courted her, but that was hardly a worry for Asima. During their last meeting tonight to finalise the arrangements, she had taken the opportunity to slip him a cup of wine laced with a lethal but slow-acting poison. He would first notice the cramps in an hour or so and would then be dead within minutes. She had practiced dosage and timing on a variety of animals in the gardens over the past three weeks and was satisfied that the guard would never have the opportunity to tell anyone what had happened. Of course, he wouldn’t anyway, for he would then be staring death in the face alongside Sh’a’lah, but this way was more sure.

As an additional touch, she had left the vial of poison in his room. When the body was found it would be assumed he had taken his own life after realising what he had done.

In the aftermath, a week or so from now, the order in the harem would change drastically. Far from everyone moving one place closer to the most favoured position, around a dozen of those wives above her, those who were known to be close to Sh’a’lah and would now be tarnished by her failure, would fall from favour. That would be enough, given Asima’s recent good favour and the gifts and surprises she had in store, to push her into the top few of the God-King’s chosen. Within a month she would now be taken to wife. Of that she was certain.

She allowed her thoughts to return to the present.

Guards were now rushing through the trees and across the grass to their master’s calls. Sh’a’lah sagged in his grasp, broken and hopeless. Sad in a way, as she’d always been nice to Asima and so perky and full of life. Not for long, though.

The next challenge would be to deal with the sixty-three year old favourite, Keshia.

Tonight Asima would move on to her new project.

In which Asima’s world changes once more

Asima woke to commotion and instantly settled into an evil mood. She needed her rest. It had been five days since Sh’a’lah had been executed and things had only just begun to settle down in the harem after the tremendous shake up that had resulted. Asima needed her sleep, in the name of all that was sensible. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the satin pillow over her head and pressed its smooth, cold exterior over her head, squeezing her eyes tight and willing sleep to come back in what was clearly a futile gesture.