The Diviner (2 page)

The al-Ma'aliq still ruled their cities and fields and mountain castle like the kings they hadn't been for generations. They behaved as if Nizzira's own great-grandmother hadn't fielded the army that turned back the western barbarians. Her ancestor had safeguarded the al-Ma'aliq and everyone else in a thousand-mile march from the slaughters that ensued when Believers in Acuyib's Glory refused to accept that outrageous Mother-and-Son religion. But the trouble Sheyqa Ammara Izzad encountered in expelling the invaders was but a prelude to getting the pretentious, condescending, deceiving al-Ma'aliq to own up to their agreement: fealty in exchange for protection.

Aware that she was frowning, the Sheyqa smoothed her expression and scooped up a handful of candied rose petals. The sugary crunch was satisfying and soothed her as if she were still a child—and she was reminded yet again of her father, and how he had doled out candies to munch on when her multitude of half-sisters and cousins had been plotting against her. When she was a child, the sweets had comforted her; when she grew older, reaching for candies had kept her hand from her knife on more than one occasion, and occupying her mouth with chewing had kept her lips from forming regrettable and possibly fatal words.

Ayia, but she had out-plotted them all. Her mother's five other husbands and their vile offspring were either dead or rendered so insignificant as to be effectively dead. This was the truest test of a sheyqa: that she should prevail in the end over every other female of her bloodline with any claim to the throne—for what use was a ruler against outside enemies if she could not defeat those inside her own palace? It was a father's job to keep his daughters safe until they were old enough to put to good use his advice and his years of subtle scheming and the alliances he had carefully nurtured. Nizzira's father had been a brilliant man, but she had also been a genuinely gifted student. Proof: She was Sheyqa of Rimmal Madar. In her hands was all the power—and all the attendant worries. Most of these worries were named al-Ma'aliq.

Nizzira's great-grandmother had personally assembled the troops that had subdued the al-Ma'aliq after the invaders were expelled; her grandfather, acting on behalf of his elderly mother, had been compelled to do it again; Nizzira's mother had been criminally remiss in not setting them back on their silk-covered asses for good and all. Now one of their arrogant, chattering daughters had given Nizzira her fiftieth descendant, and for this she was supposed to be grateful. All the indolent girl had to do was sit around sipping mint tea and gossiping while she swelled up like a hippopotamus and eventually, after a few grunts and groans and a disgusting bloody mess, push out an infant—while all the time Nizzira was managing the dauntingly varied affairs of an entire nation.

And now Ammineh's male relations lounged near the Sheyqa's couch, eating the Sheyqa's food and drinking the Sheyqa's wine, as if the new baby were in any way of their form or making. The infant looked nothing like the al-Ma'aliq. She had Nizzira's luxuriant black hair, her long-lidded dark eyes, her noble nose, her clever mouth. The only contamination was in the chin—square and stubborn like Ammineh's, not rounded and cleft like the Sheyqa's own. But perhaps that would change in time.

Even if it didn't, there would be nobody around to compare the child to. The al-Ma'aliq were attending their final banquet, down to the last man. As for their complacent wives . . . and as for their other pestilential daughters . . . and as for every one of their unruly little brats . . .

They would be taken care of, too.

The Sheyqa dipped her fingertips in the bowl of scented water and smiled. Yes, she was in a mood for celebrating, and the proud, stupid alMa'aliq were happy to oblige.

 

Why, Azzad al-Ma'aliq asked himself for the thousandth time, were women so expensive? And not just in the cost of trinkets, either. They demanded a man's time and exhausted his patience, not to mention his energy. They required so much attention. And thoughtfulness. And conversation.

And money,
he thought ruefully, patting the folds of green and gold silk wound around his waist, where until an hour ago a fabulous pearl necklace had been concealed. It was now somewhere in the rubbish heap behind Ashiyah's house. Instead of squealing with delight at the gift, she'd thrown it out her bedroom window.

The idea had been for Ashiyah to undress him—slowly if she liked, quickly if that was her mood; he was always generous and accommodating, wasn't he?—and discover his latest gift, and then—

But that hadn't happened. She'd come at him spitting and clawing, furious that he was late. A hundred women in Rimmal Madar would have waited years just for a smile from the latest handsome al-Ma'aliq male in a long line of handsome al-Ma'aliq males, and yet Ashiyah had behaved as if a paltry couple of hours was sufficient reason to rip his face to shreds.

He'd backed off, desperately groping for the pearls hidden in his gold-and-green striped sash. For just an instant the ploy succeeded; covetous joy sparked hotter than anger in her magnificent eyes when she saw the jewels.

Then she seized the necklace and tried to strangle him with it.

Between his knees, Khamsin heaved an almost human sigh. Azzad patted the stallion's arching black neck. “Do you think you need to tell me I'm a fool? Believe me, it's nothing I haven't told myself a thousand times. But she
is
spectacularly beautiful. And it would infuriate her husband spectacularly if he ever caught us!”

The vexing Ozmin had in recent months been Azzad's guide through the bureaucratic snarl of the Sheyqa's tax collectors. It was the al-Ma'aliq's contention that their lands were being singled out for heavier tribute than usual, and Za'avedra el-Ibrafidia al-Ma'aliq—in futile hopes of rousing her second son to anything even vaguely resembling familial responsibility—assigned Azzad the disagreeable duty of untangling (which meant bribing) enough functionaries to support a protest in the law courts. Absurd, of course; everyone knew it was the Sheyqa who had ordered the extra taxes, and only the Sheyqa would have any say in easing them. Not for the first time, Azzad joined his relations in cursing the ancestor who had thought it expedient to make a bond of defense with a woman everyone had fully expected to die in battle against the heathen—or to be murdered by one of her own lethal siblings in their quest for family dominance.

But Sheyqa Nizzira's great-grandmother had not died, and the oath remained binding, and here they all were: sworn to the descendant of an arrogant bitch from some obscure southern tribe whom Acuyib had inexplicably blessed in war.

“At least I don't have it as bad as Ammineh,” he muttered. The stallion's ears twitched, but Azzad's tone indicated nothing more than the usual complaining, so Khamsin ignored him. “She has to
sleep
with the son of that miserable barghoutz. For a little while,
I
slept with Ashiyah.”

Not that Ashiyah's whisperings on his behalf when she summoned her husband to share her pillows had done the al-Ma'aliq any good. Azzad hadn't courted Ashiyah only for her usefulness—though had she been skinny and plain instead of sumptuously beautiful, he simply would have closed his eyes or told her that making love in the dark was so much more sensuous. Ayia, memories of her bed would have to sustain him until the next luscious lady presented herself to his fastidious notice. He wondered with a sudden grin who he could bestow his favors on to infuriate Ashiyah most when she heard of it.

He rode through the dark streets toward home, paying no attention to his surroundings. He didn't need to; Khamsin was familiar with this route. Azzad's nose identified the streets for him without his being fully aware of it. The stench of tanneries and butcher shops. The softly tantalizing scents from bakeries in Ayyash Sharyah. The tang of dinner spices wafting silently down from upstairs living quarters in Zoqalo Zaffiha, where from dawn until dark the hammers of brass and bronze and tin workers clanged. The long narrow alley where the stink of dye vats and wet wool was bearable only by daylight, and only because of the eyes' delight in the rainbow shanks hung from balcony to balcony overhead to dry. All workshops were shut up tight now, all streets and squares deserted. No one called out invitations to see or sample various wares, so Azzad was left alone with his thoughts.

Khamsin picked his way along the dirt and cobbles toward home while Azzad dreamed of Beit Ma'aliq's cool fountains, and fruits plucked ripe from the trees, and an evening spent listening to his sisters sing. The girls were of an age now to be of use to an older brother. Perhaps, he mused, fingers toying with the fine bronze wire tassels on the reins, now that they were almost marriageable, some of their prettier friends might be amenable to a dalliance....

He could see his mother's face even now: stern, implacable, her dark eyes knowing every wayward thought in his head, and a single word on her lips as sharp as the silver needle that was her family's name and crest:
No
. Whatever women he amused himself with, none of them could be of rank or wealth.

Then again, Za'avedra el-Ibrafidia might turn a blind eye to such an association, in the way of mothers who knew their sons. If he compromised a nobleman's daughter, he would be forced to wed her. The very thought made him shudder. Getting married. Fathering children. Living a settled life. Doing something useful for the family—something unutterably boring. Staying with one woman for the rest of his life, or at least until her parents were dead. No, when he married—
if
he married—it would be to a girl with no relations whatsoever, not a single woman or man of her family alive anywhere to trouble him on her behalf when he wanted a little variety in his bed. Azzad considered it grossly unfair that only a sheyqa and her immediate family were permitted more than one spouse, the justification being that from them sprang the strength of the nation in the form of strong daughters and sons.

He snorted. Of all the descendants that Sheyqa Nizzira and her sons and daughters had produced so far, Azzad had heard very little to recommend any of them. Fifty of them now; he'd heard this morning that his cousin Ammineh had given birth to a daughter, and—

“Fifty! Acuyib save me! The celebration feast!”

Khamsin didn't bother to swing an ear around this time, but when Azzad hauled back on the reins, the stallion snorted and pranced a few steps in protest. He wanted his stall and his evening feed, Azzad knew—but all the al-Ma'aliq had been invited to the palace tonight to celebrate Ammineh's little girl, and in anticipating an evening with Ashiyah, the royal command had completely slipped his mind.

With a groan—he'd never get there in time and would have to think up some plausible excuse for his tardiness—he turned Khamsin toward the palace. A brisk trot and a shortcut or two, and maybe he'd arrive during the dancing or while an especially incredible creation of the Sheyqa's kitchen staff was being presented, or—well, he'd spent all his twenty years being lucky, and there was no reason to think tonight would be any different.

 

“Esteemed Majesty,” the eunuch whispered at Sheyqa Nizzira's shoulder, “not all of them drink enough.”

The Sheyqa smiled, clapping her hands in time to a spirited tune, following the dancers' swirling silks and exposed flesh with her gaze. The youth on the far left, the one who was dark and muscular and half-naked, he might do for later tonight. She kept her eyes on him, annoyed by the interruption, knowing it was necessary to reply. Without moving her lips, she said, “I never meant them to.”

“But—Revered Majesty—your kinsmen from beyond The Steeps said—”

She saw the concertmaster watching her and gave him the signal that indicated her choice of the beautiful dark boy. He nodded once and turned to give his own instructions. To the eunuch, the Sheyqa said, “All that is required is that most of them are drunk. Go away. All will be as it should.”

“You have commanded it, Exalted One.” Bowing low, he melted away into the shadows.

She returned her attention to the boy, whose new role in the dance now required him to shed almost all his clothes. He was the coveted one, the desired one; all the other young men faded into the corners of the room while concubines belonging to Nizzira's sons danced to tempt him.

“No difficulties, I trust, Highness?” asked the al-Ma'aliq seated nearest her—father of Ammineh, smug enough to make Nizzira's palm itch for her knife.

Instead she waved a well-manicured hand, rings sparking a dozen colors by lamplight. “That silly eunuch frets as if he truly were a woman, instead of merely not a man. Do you enjoy yourself, my friend?”

“Truly, Highness, it is a night for jubilation at Acuyib's great generosity to both our houses. For is it not said,” he added, his smile dazzlingly white below a luxuriant black mustache, “that the fiftieth of a sheyqa's descendants shall be the joy of her age? My own father finds it so.” He directed a fond glance at the drooling ninety-year-old moron who, determined not to wait for grandchildren to fulfill his ambition, had killed seven successive wives in the getting of his first forty-nine offspring. The fiftieth, sole product of the eighth and final wife, attended the old man so devotedly that he practically chewed his food for him. The Sheyqa found this utterly disgusting, but what offended her more deeply was the reference yet again to the long-gone alMa'aliq power. That senile, toothless old man ruling Rimmal Madar? It didn't bear contemplation.

What she said, in a mild tone, was, “I hope your daughter has given me a child just as fine for my fiftieth.”

“I am confident that she has, Highness.” Another raising of the wine to his daughter's accomplishment.