Ten

S H A R Ī F

 

To be king is to be a slave. That’s what they don’t tell you. The ingratiating bows, the absurd luxuries, the sweaty obsequious smiles of strangers with flabby fingers and ruby rings: all of it is an extravagant pretence. Something Sidon’s father, for all his gnomic sayings and sage looks, had failed to tell his heir and son. Come to think of it he failed to say much of anything those last few months, bedridden most days, half-mad on the others.

And so when Sidon found himself, a year ago today, standing a quarter-mile beyond the city walls by the sepulchre as they rolled the stone, it was almost a relief to know the old man was finally gone. His mother, Chalise, had stood alone off to the side, her pale face tearless and blank as stone. Sidon, just thirteen, had stood with Uncle Játhon and his father’s chamberlain, Elias, as they sealed the tomb with the palsied body of the old man inside. And afterward Sidon had tried to pretend he wasn’t glad. Glad he’d no longer see the handmaids cleaning his father’s emaciated flesh. Glad he’d no longer have to hold that frail veiny hand as he lay murmuring in his bed. Glad he’d no longer have to pretend it was fine when the old man forgot his name and seemed to scarcely recognize who he was. Glad it was all finally over.

He stood in the Judgment Hall looking out over Hanesda. From here he could see as far as Pularsi’s amphitheatre and the southern quarter baths, and the pyramid of the city forum beside them prodding from the blockish rows of housing. They’d anointed him there, in the forum, a week after his father’s burial. And although Sidon had trembled with nervousness throughout the ceremony he’d felt strangely exhilarated too. Sidon son of Helgon, sharíf of the Sovereignty, ruler of the Five Lands. No more Father commanding him what to do and when to do it. No more Mother ordering him around and telling him what to wear. He was ruler now. He was a man. He’d be able to do things his own way. Or so he’d thought at the time.

“There you are.”

His mother came walking across the Judgment Hall as he stared out the window. He was looking at the way the aqueducts tracked along the eastern wall to meet the Swift on the other side.

“It would be better if the water’s channels came in by Kaldan’s Tower,” he said. “Or even the circus, don’t you think? It’s strange that they don’t.”

His mother came to a halt at his shoulder. “The seamstresses have been waiting for you, Sidon.”

Sidon turned to face her. She was dressed in a long blue robe. The garment draped neatly from her slender shoulders to the floor. Too young to be a queen mother. She’d been a girl of eighteen years when she’d wed his father, Helgon, to become sharífa. His father had been a man of fifty at the time.

“You are beautiful, Mother. All the council say so. They say you will wed again.”

“It is your wedding we ready for, my son.”

“Yes. Some Tresánite you have chosen who is old enough to be my aunt–”

“She is only eight years older than you.”

“–and who I’ve seen but once, and never met, and probably won’t much like.”

“She is a good match. Joining with her house will secure your throne.”

“You told me last time I’d grow to like her.”

“Yes, well, perhaps a sharíf ought not require the childishness of pretence to do his duty. Now come… my king.”

She turned and strode away. Sidon reluctantly, followed, walking out to the adjoining corridor which led toward the throne room and then to his bedchambers on the other side of the palace. The walls were marked with multicoloured ink drawings of Umar of Saliph kneeling to Theron the Great, the third sharíf – the mural was Father’s favourite. The Birth of the Sovereignty, he liked to call it, depicting the moment when the king of Calapaar had ceded his vast territories and throne. The moment when Theron king of Sumeria became Theron the Great, a king of kings and true sharíf – fulfilling the dream of his grandfather, Karel, and beginning the line of sovereigns whose territories would continue to expand from one generation to the next as they conquered the High East, then Harán, Eram, and eventually Hardeny to the west; all the way to Dumea and the borders of Súnam lying south of it.

Sidon’s gaze passed on from the drawings as they rounded the corner and moved toward his bedchamber. A small audience had gathered. They turned in unison as Sidon and his mother entered. A plump balding man with hairy forearms came forward and bowed.

“The choices have been prepared, Sharíf.”

The man clicked his fingers and ushered several young women forward, each holding swathes of satiny fabric draped over either arm in varying colours and patterns.

“They are from Caphás, Sharíf, the finest that can be found. You see the fabric, how tightly woven it is. It is done by the hands of children, very skilled, their fingers are nimbler than any–”

“The blue, the red, and this one, the purple with the dyed yarn stitching.”

The man bowed again. “The sharíf chooses well.” He turned and clapped. Two of the girls hurried to a dressing area that had been set up in the corner. Another servant girl came alongside Sidon with a platter of fruit as he walked toward the screens. Sidon took a grape and, seeing his mother, the hirsute dressmaker and the house servants still standing behind him, paused.

“Don’t worry, Mother. I think I will manage to dress myself.”

She smiled thinly and went toward the door. The others followed her out.

It was a common thing for dressmakers to employ mutes as attendants. Sidon had even known some to cut out a slavegirl’s tongue to better suit her for the role. A dressmaker could seldom expect to be present when a customer was trying on his wares. It seemed sensible to keep those whose company he’d have to leave them in from saying anything foolish. All of which meant it was a surprise when one of the girls actually answered Sidon. He’d been talking to himself as she helped him disrobe and put on an undercoat.

“What did you say?”

“I said I think you are right. That one does look better.”

He looked at her, then to another slavegirl – apparently customarily mute – who looked back blankly, and then hurriedly stepped back behind the screen.

“It wouldn’t usually do for someone your age but you’ve a man’s shoulders already, my king.”

Which was enough to keep Sidon from flinging the backswinging knuckle of his hand across her face and calling her master in to flog her.

“You’ve a bold tongue,” he said.

The girl gave an apologetic dip of her head. “Forgive me, my king. My mother always says I can be dull-witted that way, given to speaking out of turn.”

“Yes, well…” Sidon glanced at the cut of her dress, the way the fabric collected tidily between her breasts like a weir. “I suppose some follies, given time and mercy, can be learned from.”

“Thank you, my king. Sorry, my king.”

Sidon turned back to the brass dish to examine his reflection. He glanced hesitantly back to the girl. “But you say this one is better?”

The girl smiled shyly. “Yes, my king. The seam runs wider, here.” Her palm brushed slowly across his shoulder blades as he looked at his reflection. “You have strong shoulders, so the fit is better for you. It is a man’s fit, not a boy’s.”

Sidon nodded. Perhaps her counsel wasn’t such a bad thing. “What is your name?”

“Iani, my king.”

“Your master has taught you in these things?”

“Master V’lari teaches all of us, my king. But I’ve always had an eye for it. I’d fix my mother’s dresses for her when I was a child.”

Sidon turned from the brass to face her. She was slender, with rich dark hair that clung in soft curls to her neck like hanging baubles. She was only a few years older than him, younger than the girl he’d been promised to. Her dress was plain but clung around the hips so her–

“Sidon!”

The door to the bedchamber swung open with a thud, loud enough to make Sidon flinch. “What under the sun…” He pushed the girl aside and looked out from behind the screen to find his mother striding across the room toward him.

“What are you doing, Mother? I told you I can dress my–”

“You must come quickly,” she said. “There has been word from Gahíd.”

 

The doorkeeper to the throne room was a tall Súnamite with wide round shoulders that bulged from his sleeveless tunic like dark pommels. He bowed and held the door as Sidon and his mother entered.

The throne room was Sidon’s favourite chamber; he loved the lofty ceiling and the elaborate paintings of his predecessors, Arvan the Scribe and Tsarúth the Brave, that covered it. He loved too the long windows that strafed the west wall, tall oblongs of nothing open to the sky and emptying the waning day into the chamber in thick shafts of dim sunlight that bronzed the wall on the other side, illuminating the detailed murals of the red-armoured armies of Theron the Great at the Battle of the Crescent.

Sidon’s chamberlain, Elias – a small and wiry old man with large watery eyes that reminded Sidon of an owl – sat alone by the long council table. Uncle Játhon, governor of the city of Caphás and a prince of Calapaar, stood by one of the tall windows opposite, facing out to the palace court and marketplace beneath.

Elias stood and bowed as Sidon came in. Játhon turned from the window and gave a cursory nod.

Sidon noted the pair of courtiers in the middle of the room and looked at Elias as he climbed the steps to his throne.

“They have the herald’s letter,” Elias said. “The herald did not think herself worthy to enter your throne room. She made these two swear to keep the seal unbroken until you were present.”

The queen mother raised her eyebrows. She’d followed Sidon up the steps and lowered into her seat beside him.

“The herald is one of Gahíd’s own,” the chamberlain explained.

Sidon caught his meaning and smiled. “Is she? I’ve never yet seen one face to face. Is she still here?”

“She waits by the reflecting pool to deliver your words to Gahíd.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

“It would be her honour, Sharíf,” Elias said. “But that Gahíd would send one of them, and not a ranger, or dove… it suggests the matter is urgent.”

Sidon nodded. “Very well. I am here now.”

Elias bowed, showing the bald tanned dome of his scalp, his white hair curved in coarse tufts about the sides and back of his head like a fluffy halo. He turned to the courtiers and slipped a palm from the warmth of one of his deep sleeves to beckon them forward.

“Open the seal and read the words.”

The younger courtier nodded. “Yes, sire.” He cleared his throat, peeled the seal from the flute and took out the thin piece of vellum inside. “It says only: The shadows sent out have turned on each other.”

Sidon saw his mother stiffen beside him. One of Elias’s horny feathered eyebrows hitched upwards. A silence stretched.

“Turned, you say…” the chamberlain said.

“Yes,” the courtier answered. “That is what the letter says.”

“Show me.”

The courtier stepped forward with the epistle in hand. Elias took it and read. He looked back at Sidon and nodded.

“Was there nothing else?” Játhon had now stepped in from the far wall, frowning. “Did the herald say nothing else?”

“No, sire. The letter was all.”

Sidon’s mother leaned her forehead against her fingers.

Játhon waved the courtier away. “Leave us.”

“No.” The queen mother spoke. “They shall stay.” She stood and walked slowly down the steps. “You have both taken the vow,” she said to the courtiers. “Let it be known that should you break it and utter anything of what is spoken here there will remain nothing of you nor those of your house that shall not be broken tenfold in like manner. Do you understand?”

The courtiers nodded. A cloud passed the sun outside.

“The herald,” she said. “How long was her journey?”

“Seven days, she said,” the younger courtier answered. “She rode from the north, through the ash plains.”

The sharífa nodded and glanced at Játhon. “It will have been a moon past at least then.”

“Yes,” Játhon said. “Unfortunate.”

She turned back to the courtier. “I trust the herald spoke of where she learned Gahíd’s tidings.”

“Yes, Sharífa. Gahíd sent her from Godswell; a small Calapaari village a few days south of the Black Mountains.”

“And does Gahíd remain there now?”

“The herald said he planned to stay, to study the place.”

“I will need to speak with her, this herald.”

“Yes, Sharífa,” the older courtier said, speaking for the first time. “I will see to it.”

The queen mother flapped an assenting palm.

The courtier bowed and exited the room, leaving the other standing alone. The sharífa went to one of the windows and looked outside. Her desire for a census had been refused by the council that morning, opposed, no doubt, by governors Sufiya of Qareb and Malkezar of Sippar, unhappy at having a boy on the throne too young to properly wield power and a queen mother who was, to them, an outsider. Chalise was a daughter of Saliph, the ruling house of Calapaar to the west and north, rather than a native of Sumeria like the late Helgon the Wise who’d widowed her. First Laws or not, for many it was the old ties they still held to. That was something young Sidon still failed to understand. Yes, he was sharíf. Yes, his forefathers had won vast territories. But to hold and wield them still required the influence of the Sovereign Council, an assembly including the rulers of every major city throughout the Five Lands, many of whom happened to be the offspring of old royal lines, with breeding and egos to match. Chalise understood it; before marrying Helgon to become sharífa she’d been one of them too, daughter to an old and noble line now reduced to bowing to sovereign edicts like an eager housemaid. Raised to rule, forced to serve, with the echo of the ancestral surrender and failure that had led to it splayed across the palace walls in celebratory murals like a constant taunt.

It took the tact of a general to avoid prodding these inherited wounds in council members whilst trying to coerce them to her own ends. To court the favour of Jashar, the king of Harán, without trampling the interests of Qalqaliman or Hikramesh. Every promise of an extra five hundred measures of grain to one city was a slight against the interests of another, every commitment to better trade for one land’s merchants along the Ivory Pass would be at the expense of another’s. Chalise had hoped the preparations for her son’s wedding would lighten her mood, and now this. Her head was beginning to ache.

“You are new, are you not?” she said.

The courtier, realizing he was being addressed, nodded. “Yes, Sharífa.”

“Phanuel, isn’t it?”

He looked up, surprised to be known by name.

“You will perhaps find all this… a little confusing.”

Phanuel didn’t answer.

“You know the tidings, yet do not understand them… Talk of shadows and so on…” She made a lazy gesture with her hand, she was still looking out of the window. “It is something to which you will grow accustomed.”

“My duty is only to obey, Sharífa.”

“Yes, obey. Of course.” She sighed wearily.

“Though… I would know my queen’s disquiet if I were able to still it.”

She cocked an eyebrow and looked at Phanuel over her shoulder. Phanuel bowed his head.

“Would you indeed,” she said, then glanced at Elias at the table, and then back at Phanuel.

Again Phanuel didn’t answer, unsure now why he had the first time. Yaron, the other more experienced courtier, had advised prudence in the throne room, it was always best to let one’s words be few. Phanuel bowed his head.

“Well then,” the Sharífa said. “Perhaps you shall know it…”

She turned from the window and began to approach him.

“Your king sent wolves on an errand, Phanuel,” she said, gesturing vaguely to Sidon sitting quietly on the throne. “Expecting them to do what instinct has taught them to do.” She walked along the lengthy table toward the courtier. “Yet these wolves defied what they’d been taught, they defied their master.”

Phanuel remained silent.

“What do you think of that?”

Phanuel looked at the others in the throne room, then the sharífa again. “I know little of wolves, Sharífa.”

“Even so…” she gestured mildly, waiting.

Phanuel hesitated. “I would think a wolf without instinct is more a dog than a wolf, my queen.”

The sharífa smiled. “I would agree, Phanuel, I would agree. Yet even a dog is obedient to his master. What fate should await the one that is not?”

“Punishment, I would suppose.”

She glanced behind to Játhon this time, then smiled again. “Quite,” she said. “Yet these dogs are no ordinary beasts, they are a more savage kind than their kin, and now run free who knows where.”

She had made her way around the table and taken several further steps toward Phanuel as she talked. She stood before him now with her hands clasped in front of her, gaze fixed, like a stablehand inspecting a new bought horse. Phanuel looked to Elias but his sleepy gaze stared back, indifferent. He looked back at the sharífa. She was smiling mildly, though her eyes remained hard, scrutinising. Phanuel fumbled for an answer.

“Then perhaps a trap? I’ve known men to catch wolves with traps.”

“Perhaps these are too cunning for traps.”

Phanuel said nothing.

“Come Phanuel, speak,”

“He is young, Sharífa,” Elias answered from the table. “He does not see his impudence, but I will teach him of it.”

She smiled more broadly now. “There is no impudence, Elias. He merely desires to please his queen.” She turned to Phanuel once more. “Isn’t that right, courtier?”

“I…” he looked to Elias again, then to Játhon, who too was watching, amused. Then to Sharíf Sidon on the throne, who was peering back curiously. “I am sorry, my queen.”

“What need is there for apology? I ask only a question; you need only answer.”

“I…”

“Come, let me know your counsel. How to catch a wolf, hmm?”

The sharífa had stepped closer, no more than a foot or so from him. He could feel the warmth of her breath.

“Will you not comfort your sharífa?” Her voice was quiet, yet rising.

Phanuel looked again to Elias, pleadingly.

“How to catch a wolf?”

“Sharífa, forgive me, I–”

“How to catch a wolf?” she repeated mildly.

Phanuel was panting now. “I cannot…”

“Don’t look at him. Look at me. I am your queen.”

“Please, Sharífa.”

“Answer me.”

“I…”

“Answer me!” she erupted, eyes wide with rage.

Phanuel felt the cool spray of spittle across his cheeks and on the bridge of his nose. He shut his eyes, trembling.

“Answer me!”

“Another wolf,” he blurted.

Silence. Phanuel eventually opened his eyes to find her staring at him, her face now suddenly impassive. There was no trace of anger, or even feeling.

She spoke gently. “What was that?”

Phanuel’s chin was buried in his chest. “I… I would say, perhaps… another wolf?”

The sharífa looked on him a long while, then smiled. “Indeed.” She brought her hand to Phanuel’s face and allowed it to hover over his cheek a moment before patting it softly. “Another wolf.” She sighed happily and walked away back along the side of the table, past the tall windows and up the steps to return to her seat. “Very good, Phanuel,” she said as she settled back beside the lofty bronze and ivory throne of her son who was now watching her curiously.

It was then the heavy scrape of the doors came again and the doorkeeper ushered the returning courtier into the chamber. He came and stood beside Phanuel and bowed.

“The herald awaits your enquiry, Sharíf.”

Sidon peeled his gaze away from his mother and nodded.

“Very good,” the queen mother answered. “Tell her to send word.”

“My queen?”

“To Gahíd. She shall send word. Tell her…” She pondered a moment, looking off into the distance, smiling faintly. “Tell her, the Sharíf says to ready the pack, a wolf to catch a wolf. He will understand.”

The courtier looked at Sidon, then Phanuel, and then the others in the room, and then bowed. “Very good, my queen.”