Asima stood by the golden latticework window and peered down. There were precious few external windows in the royal harem, and most of those were inaccessible to the girls. It had taken her a long time to find a window that looked out toward the rest of the palace complex rather than over the sea. Such a window was to be found in the antechambers of the mistress of the gates.
The woman, whom the girls had privately nicknamed the ‘Witch of Akkad’ was in charge of the security of the harem and the keeping of order and, initially, Asima had run afoul of her several times. She had been trying hard to fit in and to become a model occupant and yet the rules were so strict, or at least, those enforced by the witch were, that Asima’s natural curiosity had led her into conflict until she began to learn how to play the game. Fortunately, over those first few weeks a greater problem arose for the mistress of the gates, in the form of the continually rebellious Sharra who seemed to have little regard for personal safety and no fear of punishment. The girl had made four bungled attempts to leave the harem in the first week, including a laughably traditional ‘blanket rope’ down the walls to the precipitous sea cliffs.
And so Asima’s curiosity had begun to go overlooked. She had explored every place she could get to within the harem, though there were a number of doors that were securely locked and barred that sealed off whole areas.
In this time of adjustment, her opinions of the whole situation here and of the nature of the Pelasian royal household had been changed rapidly, as her eyes had opened to what Pelasia had to offer other than the wicked satrap Ma’ahd. She had taken the natural leap in assumptions that the harem was little more than a decorative prison to contain those women the God-King took to his bed.
How wrong she had been; the harem was so much more. Truly, it was home to those women who were wives and concubines of the God-King or lovers who had the potential to become one of the official companions. But the harem was more than this. It was also the home to the female members of the God-King’s family, including his mother, four aunts, two sisters and six girl children. More than a prison, the harem was a place of protection and seclusion for the royal women, and a place where girls were taught the ways of the court and Pelasian society in order to make them fitting brides for the God-King, or for other nobles or princes if the God-King decided not to take them.
So Asima had learned over those first few weeks that most of her waking time was already allotted to lessons in etiquette, history, deportment, the application of makeup, massage and the use of oils, the geography of Pelasia, literature and so much more. She had never dreamed there could be so much to learn.
It had been at least two weeks before she had settled in enough to plan her time efficiently. There were twelve hours of lessons each day. Given that the daily routine for bathing, dressing and making up took a little over two hours, that meals took up at least an hour of the day, and that the girls were expected to sleep for eight hours to prevent unsightly shadowing of the eyes, that left Asima with less than an hour of freedom each day.
Careful planning had led to a streamlining of the preparation process, which granted her an extra hour in the morning and to the discovery that there were three hours in the late evening, once the girls were assumed to be settled in bed, when the witch and her cronies would play games of dice, drink sweet wines and smoke the water pipe, and the corridors were free to roam.
And so it was the late evening when Asima did her exploring.
Three weeks or so after her arrival, Asima had been sneaking around the upper galleries above the gate area; the night indeed when she had discovered the very window she now stood at, when she had bumped into Yasmin for the first time. She had nearly died of fright as she slowly and silently crept around a corner, walking on the sides of her feet to keep the pressure she applied to the floorboards as narrow as possible, and collided with a smaller girl coming the other way.
They had both made an involuntary squeak; the sort that someone who is where they know they should not be makes when they manage not to shriek.
As the two had picked themselves up, they had looked one another up and down, appraisingly. Yasmin was beautiful, and obbviously lithe. She had to be a little older than Asima, but was clearly still a student here, as Asima had seen her in classes. In a mere glance, the girls had instantly summarized one another, both clearly aware of what the other was up to. A smile had broken the moment and a wary alliance had quickly formed between the two girls.
As the older girl, Yasmin would be presented to the God-King a year before Asima. She would therefore have seniority and a full year to ingratiate herself before Asima became a threat. Thus Yasmin was comfortable with the newcomer for at least a couple of years. Similarly, Asima knew there was nothing she could do about her new ally at this point, short of physical violence, and that Yasmin would know many things about the harem and could be of use. For the moment, the two girls recognised that they were the ‘cream of the crop’ among the young ladies waiting for their time.
After that, things had become easier and much more interesting. Yasmin had warned Asima who to watch for and who could be trusted. Over the following weeks, a campaign of advancement had begun. As far as the other occupants of the harem were concerned, Asima and Yasmin barely knew one another even by sight, and such anonymity granted surprising power. Messages were passed secretly and evidence planted to lower the status of those who currently stood out above the two girls.
Ladies who were so straight and noble Asima wondered how they managed to bend in the middle found themselves disciplined for possession of stolen sweetmeats and smoking pipes. Gradually and slowly, and with infinite subtlety, Asima and Yasmin moved up the ranks of the almost four dozen girls in training.
Each year, on the feast of the maker, the girls of age would be presented to the God-King in the temple and he would choose three, in sacred memory of the three aspects of the creator. Three girls would become wives or concubines, out of perhaps twenty or more. The rest would wait until the next state occasion, when they would all be presented at the palace to the hungry eyes of Princes, satraps and senior commanders of the Pelasian military as potential brides or concubines.
Asima and Yasmin had been determined to be among those chosen and, since they would be selected a year apart they were no threat to one another until they were both in the Royal court.
Almost two months after she arrived at Akkad, Asima had caught sight for the first time of the God-King of Pelasia. He was nothing like she had expected. For no real reason, the picture she had formed in her mind was of an overweight, overbearing and over-dressed fop who would have carpets rolled out before him as he walked and rose petals cast beneath his feet. The ancient tales in the Empire spoke of the Pelasian God-Kings as such.
This man was so far from that, Asima had found she had trouble adjusting her thinking.
She had been standing and recovering with three of her classmates after a gruelling athletics lesson, at the edge of the gardens and close to the gate passage, when the gate had been opened and the light from beyond flooded into the dark aperture, picking out the decoration on the walls and ceiling.
The God-King had come for one of his wives. Asima had learned that no King of Pelasia retained his name; to call him by name was disrespectful. He was simply the God-King. But even he, as a man, was forbidden entry to the harem; not that he would have tried, it seemed.
Pelasia’s absolute ruler was a man in his early sixties at a guess. He could be older and very well preserved, but he was certainly no younger. Tall and lean, he dressed in simple black, almost like one of his soldiers, the only thing that marked him being the symbols of the royal line stitched into his cloak in gold and the very simple gold circlet on his brow. He was clean shaven and with short grey hair and piercing bright green eyes that reminded Asima of a cat caught in the light. Almost the precise opposite of Asima’s imagined ruler, the God-King was a simple and noble man, handsome in an almost indefinable way, who carried such weight and gravitas that even standing in a room full of kings, emperors and princes, he would still stand out.
Asima instantly recognised that this was a rare figure indeed and could understand now why the wives and concubines she had occasionally encountered spoke with such love and reverence of the man. Asima had smiled at that moment and had settled into her role, determined that her future would be at the side of this unsettlingly attractive older man.
Asima and Yasmin, after the second month, began to divide their time better. Now that the order of precedence in the harem had changed enough to move them both close to the top, their campaign of character assassination slowed. Now they need only keep themselves among the top runners, while allotting more time to learning those things that would make them stand out among their contemporaries.
Since that day she had seen the God-King before the harem gates several more times. It transpired that one of his most favoured pastimes was hunting and, once he had returned from a morning out with his court, he would often call at the harem and take one of his wives or concubines with him to the palace until the morning.
Discrete enquiries had further strengthened her resolve and bolstered her favourable impression of the God-King. It would appear that, despite his reputation for his… appetite seemed the most appropriate word, the God-King was charming and respectful and often took one of his favourites merely to spend the evening playing games of towers or listening to poetry or taking night time walks among the gardens.
By the start of Asima’s fourth month at Akkad, she had been a little disturbed to realise that she was happier now than at any time in her life. Moreover, she had more direction, determination and resolve that ever before and the potential for a fabulous future, living beyond the imaginable means of even the wealthiest merchant.
Toward the end of the fifth month, however, the pace in the harem changed. In seven more weeks the festival of the maker would begin in Akkad and across the country. There would be a series of events in the capital over several days, culminating in the events at the great temple, where the God-King would choose three new ladies. Preparations in the harem became manic and lessons would be cancelled for the younger students for a whole month in order to concentrate on preparing those older girls for the upcoming event.
Asima had suddenly found she had unexpected time on her hands and saw considerably less of Yasmin. It was good to become accustomed to that, though, for in the very near future she would likely see nothing of her for a while. Those girls who were being groomed for the festival began to be taken out of the harem on escorted occasions and shown other areas of the palace; introduced to those people they would need to know. They were permanently occupied with preparations and the younger girls virtually ignored.
And that was why it had been such a surprise when Yasmin had found Asima daydreaming in one of the solar rooms and dragged her hurriedly to the stairs and back up to the very corridor where they had first collided. Along a little further and they had reached the witch’s antechambers and this very window.
And now Asima stood at the window, frowning at the palace grounds as Yasmin tapped her fingers on her folded arms tensely.
“What are we waiting for?”
“Just be patient”, the other girl replied.
They could hear, muffled by the distance and corridors, the ringing of bells. Asima shook her head.
“That’s your call, Yasmin. You have classes.”
“I don’t care.”
Asima blinked.
“If you miss your classes you’ll be punished. And it will be noted among the people that really matter here.”
Yasmin smiled broadly.
“Yes, I know.”
“What?” Asima said incredulously. “Are you trying to ruin everything we’ve been working towards?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
Asima turned her head and stared in the shadowed hall at the nearest thing she had in Akkad to a friend.
“What?”
Gently, but firmly, Yasmin grasped Asima’s shoulder and turned her back to the window.
“Look.”
Asima, baffled and shocked, did as she was told. A small group of riders had come in from somewhere out of view to the left. There were eight… no nine. Their horses were steaming and had obviously been ridden hard. All of them wore the plain black of soldiers, though one wore a cloak with gold designs similar to that of the God-King and, as he dismounted and slowly removed the black scarf wound around his head, also wore a circlet.
Asima stared and the strangest thing happened: the man with the circlet turned and cast his gaze across the wall of the harem almost as though he knew he was being observed. Asima caught her breath. The man was like a younger version of the God-King himself. Handsome and tall, he was clearly one of the royal line. Not one of the God-King’s sons, though, since they both had yet to reach manhood, while this specimen had clearly done so a while ago.
“Who is he?”
Yasmin grinned.
“He is the reason I miss my lesson. He is the reason I shall be punished several times in the coming weeks and he…” she sighed and Asima recognised the hopeless adoration in the sound, “… he is the reason I shall not be selected by the God-King.”
“Yasmin, I will grant you that he’s handsome, but the God-King is both God and King. There is no one in all the world higher than he. Why settle for the moon when the sun is within reach?”
Yasmin stared at her as though she were insane.
“Look at him, Asima! Just look at him. He will be mine. You can have the God-King. I will have Prince Ashar Parishid for my own.”
“You know him?”
Yasmin nodded, grinning like a fool.
“We have spoken. He has been in the palace for a while during our escorted visits. He apparently used to spend much of his time at Velutio but, since the Empire has collapsed, he’s come home. I stumbled on a walk through the main palace’s garden. The witch went to whack me, but Prince Ashar stepped in and stopped her. He helped me up, Asima! A prince helped me up!”
Asima smiled a calculating smile as she examined the man below.
“Then I hope things go well for you, Yasmin. I really do.”
And she really did. She knew the ropes in the harem well enough now and had no use for Yasmin, and the idiot girl had just taken herself out of the running. There was nobody left that Asima considered a threat. She would be a Queen soon enough.