“I have taken the liberty of gathering together the mullahs of several of the closest Hraib. They agree with me—albeit reluctantly. Our concern now is in what manner we should disseminate this knowledge amongst the tribes and sultanates.”
“All this was done without my knowledge. On whose authority—?”
Mehr Jirah thumped a fist on the table, making the map of Torunna quiver. “I am not answerable to you or anyone else on this earth for my actions or the dictates of my conscience! I am answerable to God alone. We do not ask your permission to do what we know to be right, Sultan. We are merely keeping you informed. We will not sit on the truth, as the Ramusians have for the past five centuries. Their current version of their faith is a stench in the very nostrils of God. Would you genuinely have me commit the same blasphemy?”
Aurungzeb seemed to shrink. He pulled himself up a chair and sat down heavily. “This will affect the outlook of the army—you realise that. Some of the Minhraib are unwilling to fight as it is. If it gets out that the Ramusians are some kind of—of co-religionists, why then—”
“I prefer to think of them as brothers in faith,” Mehr Jirah interrupted grimly. “According to the Prophet, it is a heinous crime to attack one whose beliefs are the same as one’s own. Eventually, Sultan, we may have to see the Ramusians as such. They may be riven with discord, but they revere the same Prophet as we do.”
“Belief in the same God has not stopped men from killing one another. It never will. Take a close look at your brothers in faith, Mehr Jirah. They are busy cutting one another’s throats as we speak. In Hebrion and Astarac—and even Torunna—they have been fighting civil wars incessantly, even while we hammer at their eastern frontier.”
“I am not näıve, Sultan. I know the war cannot be halted in its tracks. But all I ask is that when the time comes to make peace—as it will—you keep in your mind what you have been told here.”
“I will do so, Mehr Jirah. You have my word on it. When we have taken Torunn I will be merciful. There will be no sack, I assure you.”
Mehr Jirah looked long and hard at his Sultan for several tense seconds, and then bowed. “I can ask no more. And now, with your permission, I will leave.”
“Are you intent on disseminating this news amongst the troops, Mehr Jirah?”
“Not quite yet. There are many points of doctrine which remain to be clarified. I would ask you one favour though, my Sultan.”
“Ask away.”
“I would like the Ramusian monk released into my custody. I tyre of skulking around this fortress’s dungeons.”
“By all means, Mehr Jirah. You shall have your little maniac if you please. Tell Akran I said he was to be freed. Now you may leave me. Shahr Baraz, you also.”
“Sultan, my lady—”
“Can do without her shadow for five minutes. Escort Mehr Jirah out, will you? Your mistress will be with you presently.”
Mehr Jirah and Shahr Baraz both bowed, and departed. Heria had risen to her feet when Aurungzeb held up a hand. “No, please my dear. Sit down. There is no ceremony between Sultan and Queen when they are alone together.”
As she resumed her seat he padded close until he hulked above her like a hill. He was smiling. Then one hairy-knuckled hand swooped down and ripped off her veil. The fingers grasped her jaw, their pressure pursing up her lips like a rose. When Aurungzeb spoke it was in a low, soft purr, like that of a murmuring lover.
“If you ever, ever do anything like this again behind my back, I will have you sent to a field brothel. Do you understand me, Ahara?”
She nodded dumbly.
“You are my Queen, but only because you have my son in your belly. You will be treated with respect because of him, and because of me—but that is all. Do not think that your beauty, intoxicating though it is, will ever make a fool of me. Do I make myself clear? Am I transparent enough for you?”
Again, the silent nod.
“Very good.” He kissed the bloodred lips. As his hand released her face it flushed pink, save for the white fingermarks.
“You will come to my bed tonight. You may be with child, but there are ways and means around that. Now put on your veil and return to your chambers.”
W HEN Heria had returned to her suite in the austere old tower she let her maids disrobe her, sitting passively upon her dressing stool like a sculpture. Her evening robes donned, she dismissed them and sat alone for a long time, utterly still. At last there was a knock at the door.
“My lady,” Shahr Baraz said. “Are you all right?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, and then said calmly, “Do come in, Shahr Baraz.”
The old Merduk looked concerned. “His displeasure is like a gale of wind, lady. Soon over, soon forgotten. Do not let it trouble you.”
She smiled at that. “What do you think of Mehr Jirah’s findings?”
“I am surprised no-one else has noticed such things in the five centuries Merduk and Ramusian have co-existed.”
“Perhaps they have. Perhaps the knowledge was always buried again. It will not be this time, though.”
“Lady, I am not sure if you wish to set us all at each other’s throats, or if you are genuinely crusading for the truth. Frankly, it worries me.”
“I want the war to end. Is that so bad? I want no more men killed or women raped or children orphaned. If that is treason then I am a traitor to the very marrow of my bones.”
“The Ramusians also do their share of killing,” Shahr Baraz said wryly.
“Which is why the monk Albrec must be released and allowed to return to Torunn. They are sitting on this information there as they would like to do here.”
“Men will always kill each other.”
“I know. But they at least can stop pretending to do it in the name of God.”
“There is that, I suppose. I would say this to you though: do not push Aurungzeb too far.”
“I thought he was a gale of wind.”
“He is, when he is crossed in what he thinks is a small thing, but he did not become Sultan by sitting on his hands. If anything threatens the foundation of his power, he will annihilate it without regret or remorse.”
“Including me?”
“Including you.”
“Thank you for your frankness, Shahr Baraz. It’s strange. Since coming to live amongst the Merduks I have met more honest men than I ever did in my life before. There is you, Mehr Jirah, and the monk, Albrec.”
“Three men are not so many. Were folk so dishonest in Aekir, then?” Shahr Baraz asked with a smile.
Her face clouded. She looked away.
“I’m sorry, lady. I did not mean to—”
“It’s nothing. Nothing at all. I will get used to it in time. People can grow accustomed to all manner of things.”
There was a pause. “I will be outside the door if you need me for anything, lady,” Shahr Baraz said at last. He bowed and left the room, when what he wanted to do was take her in his arms. As he resumed his post outside her door he scourged himself for his weakness, his absurdity. She was too fine to be a Merduk broodmare, and yet he thought there could be a core of pure steel behind those lovely eyes. That fellow she had loved in Aekir, who had been her husband: he must have been a man indeed. She deserved no less.
SIXTEEN
B ARDOLIN squatted on the stone floor and rubbed his wrists thoughtfully. The sores had dried up and healed in a matter of moments. The only evidence of his suffering that remained were the silver scars on his skin. He felt his shaven chin and chuckled with wonder.
“My God, I am a man again.”
“You were never anything else,” Golophin said shortly from his chair by the fire. Have yourself some wine, Bard. But go easy. Your stomach will not be used to it.”
Bardolin straightened and rose from the floor with some difficulty, grimacing. “I’m not yet used to standing upright, either. It’s been three months since I was able to stretch my limbs. God, my throat is as dry as sand. I have not talked so much in a year, Golophin. It is good to get it all out at last. It helps the healing. Even your magicks cannot restore me wholly in a moment.”
“And your magicks, Bardolin: what of them? You should have recovered from the loss of your familiar by now. What about your own Disciplines? Are they still there, or has the change stifled them?”
Bardolin said nothing. He sipped his wine carefully and eyed the pile of junk at one side of the circular tower room. His chains lay there, with his blood and filth still encrusted upon them. And the splintered fragments of the crate they had transported him here within. Six brawny longshoremen terrified out of their wits as the thing within the crate roared and snarled at them and beat against the walls of its wooden prison. They had tumbled the crate off the end of their waggon and then urged the frightened horses into a gallop, fleeing the lonely tower with all the speed they could whip out of the beasts.