Seventeen

D E C R E E

 

The marketplace seemed to hum around Chalise as she walked along the aisles between the stalls. Hands wagged and clapped. Vendors and merchants shouted as the crowd jostled and shouldered through the narrow passages of the bazaar.

“Rugs for you. Finest oxhide. Twenty shekras. For you, ten.”

“Silk from Kaloom.”

“Five shekras, then. Now I rob myself.”

Chalise let the loud bartering and bickering wash over her, ducking occasionally where the canopied stalls stood too close together.

Sidon was soon to meet his bride in Qadesh. Chalise had decided it would be good for him to select a gift to greet her with. He’d decided asking the dressmaker’s attendant, Iani, to help him choose would be a good way to rankle his mother. And so he walked on ahead with the slavegirl in tow as a dozen guardsmen pushed a furrow through the mob.

The boy was so unlike his father. Helgon had always refused to venture among the stalls. The baying bustle of the traders was an unruly chaos to him, a riot waiting to happen. Or so he’d call it. Always so cautious that way, Helgon. Stiflingly so. Sidon, it seemed, didn’t share the habit.

“He is young, Sharífa.”

Chalise blinked and looked down to find Elias at her elbow, watching her as she watched her son.

“He does not have the luxury of being young,” she said as she turned her attention back to Sidon. He was standing at a potter’s stall up ahead, talking to the dressmaker’s girl as she nodded excitedly. Chalise sighed. “He is sharíf.”

It was another half hour before they neared the west quarter. Fewer stalls. More people. An amber-cutter sat with his tools in a stone alcove on one side. Tawny feathered chickens preened in the doorway. The damp mesh of old netting hung overhead, crossing the narrow span between the wall and the stalls opposite and casting plaited shadows as Chalise and the guardsmen passed beneath. She’d ordered most of the men to stay with Sidon, along with Casimir, one of two Shedaím Gahíd had sent to guard them. Apparently, the elder was growing nervous of the renegades he was still yet to find.

The other Shedaím, Abda, walked beside Chalise. A tall angular woman with black hair tied in thick muscular braids fastened so tight they seemed to pull her face taut.

“Sharífa.”

Chalise looked down at Elias again. The diminutive chamberlain gave a small jerk of his head and strayed from the corridor of people into the din of stalls. Chalise and Abda followed whilst the palace guard, as instructed, continued on with Sidon.

Elias led her through a clutch of stalls and then on beneath a large canopy. The vendors fell still as they passed, glancing away from Abda’s flat cold stare as she followed behind the sharífa.

They eventually emerged at the market’s fringe, passing the last of the stalls and coming out onto the traders’ square. Chalise squinted as they stepped from the stall shadows. She glanced at the children running along the tops of the high walls of housing, the sandstone tenements set against one another like pebbles in a purse.

It was then she saw Gahíd.

The elder stood by a low wall fencing the street. He met the sharífa’s eye, nodded once, and then leaned back against one of the wooden support posts that marked the lengths along the market boundary.

Chalise drifted across to him. Gahíd gestured at Abda, who’d come trailing behind. The Shedaím peeled away to stand watch on the street beyond the low wall. Which was annoying, Chalise thought, Gahíd’s commanding her like that, reminding Chalise the bodyguard was not her own.

“Good to see you, General,” Chalise said.

Gahíd grimaced and bowed.

“I always forget you do not enjoy the title. But how else for your comings and goings here to not be thought of? Do you wish we’d never given it to you?”

Gahíd scanned the shore of stalls she’d approached from.

“Yes. Of course you do. But then we all wish for a great many things, don’t we, but how often do we find them?” She glanced at the empty street. “Must we always do this?”

“Prying ears are the rot of any throne, Sharífa.”

“Yes… So it is said.” She lowered slowly to the low wall and sat.

Gahíd did the same.

“So,” Chalise said. “What does the blind woman see?”

“She sees little.”

Chalise looked sidelong. “Is that so? That’s not like her.”

“No. It is not.”

“Is there a reason?”

Gahíd shifted on his seat. “She says it is my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“She warned us of this, Tarrick and me, three years ago.”

“Of this?”

“Something like this. She said Arianna would prove difficult. Tarrick and I believed she could be taught. The girl is gifted; we did not want to discard her talents needlessly… Safít says our refusal has closed her sight in the matter. She has no counsel.”

“So, what do you plan to do? One dead Shedaím is discomfiting enough, but a second? And now you say there is a third? Maybe more? It’s almost slovenly, General. I will abide a day of snow in summer, but when there is a second, one has questions.”

“I know.”

“No. You do not. You’ve weeds in your garden. Such a thing makes one wonder at the habits of the one keeping it.”

“Weeds are not the fruit of the gardener.”

“No, though they are often evidence of his neglect. The Shedaím are meant to prevent these things, not become the cause of them… What is the counsel of the elders?”

“They are yet to convene.”

“Yet to convene?” Chalise’s gaze snatched back from the market. “More pressing concerns, have they? Some other engagements they must first keep?”

“The eldership convenes just once a year, Sharífa.”

“Three of you were together barely a month ago to anoint this new sharím of yours.”

“We anoint a new sharím but once every eleven years, as you know. In any case, it takes more than we three to declare a heretic.”

Chalise stared at the elder. Slowly it dawned on her. “You’ve yet to give the order.”

“All must be there to decree against them. Not just the Three.”

“You’ve two of your…” Her jaw shivered and clenched. She glanced around and forced her voice to lower. “Those two are running free about my lands, killing and pillaging and who knows what else, and you are yet to send after them?”

“I have sent some.”

Chalise’s gaze narrowed.

“It’s why I’ve come.”

Chalise, still watching, exhaled heavily through her nostrils.

“Thirty men, soldiers from Calapaar. Very capable. And a ranger, Jaleem, from Ilysia. He knows their faces and ways well. They have been hunting them together.”

“Thirty men and a ranger? After the countless times you’ve lectured me on how feeble the sword of a soldier is before one of your vaunted Shedaím? And now you say foot soldiers are what you have sent after them? Why not send pups after wolves?”

“The betrayers are young, Sharífa. Talented, but young. And Jaleem is… special. With these soldiers in his hand he will find and at least slow them. It will give us time to prepare to send those of the Brotherhood.”

“And when will that be?”

“The council has been called. I am returning to Ilysia to meet it. From there word will be sent to the remaining Shedaím. The betrayers will be declared heretics, and the Brotherhood shall hunt them. And then there shall be no way of escape.”

Chalise stared at the elder for a long time and then stood. She surveyed the terraces. “Why, Gahíd?” She turned and looked down on him. “These betrayers – Neythan and Arianna – why are they doing this?”

“I do not know, Sharífa.”

“And the blind woman, Safít, she does not know either?”

“She does not.”

The sharífa shook her head. “What use a mystic who gives no answers?”

Gahíd watched the market.

“And you are certain these two are the ones responsible?”

“I have seen the bodies of the slain myself, those that have been found – Yannick in Godswell, Sha’id in Parses. Qerat’s too, not far from where the first was found. Each slain by the same method.” He lifted two fingers to his throat, drew them across to demonstrate. “And each time the work of a left-hander, just as Arianna is. And then there is always the bruising, where they’ve been held down by larger hands – Neythan’s hands… I too would rather it were some other way, and that these two were not our enemies, but with each passing moon another body or two of the Brotherhood is found. To take the life of one from our order is an uncommon thing, Sharífa. To take the life of more than one… Well, unless by a troop, a very large troop, there are none who can. None save those who have belonged to our order.”

Chalise paced restlessly, watching the terraces again. “You will fix this,” she said. “It is nearly new moon. My son is to wed less than a month from now. Nothing can be allowed to disrupt this.” She turned to face the market, staring at the endless motion of it, the men and women going back and forth pursuing their trade.

There were twenty-two seats on the Sovereign Council, including the rulers of every major city in the Sovereignty and, by law, the mother and wife of the sharíf. With both Játhon and Chalise’s father, Sulamar, already on the council, if all went well her family would control nearly a quarter of the court by the end of the month. And it was control she needed. Sufiya, the governor of Qareb, was already agitating for a return to the old ways and the supremacy of Sumerian blood. And there was King Jashar of Harán to think about, whose house had been a rival to the house of Salíph since before even the Cull.

Never mind that Jashar’s daughter, Satyana, was married to Játhon. Jashar and Sufiya still wanted more. More say in whose grain stores went where, and their pick of the best crop yields and trade routes, or cidlewood and cedar for whatever Haránite creation Jashar was seeking to build next. And the problem was they were gaining it. Influence. The favour of the court. Elia, the governor of Qalqaliman, had already turned to them, and there were rumours Geled’s governor, Zikram, was preparing to reject Calapaar and do the same. Two more council members to cause further delay and opposition to Chalise’s aims. Her only comfort was that she had finally chosen Sidon’s bride. A girl she had handpicked carefully, who would soon sit on the council, and who Chalise would be able to groom and prepare until she was ready to…

“Sharífa.”

Chalise started. She turned back to face the general.

“Did you hear what I said?”

She looked at him blankly.

“Dumea,” Gahíd said patiently. “What of Dumea?”

“What does Dumea have to do with anything?”

“The decrees there are yet to be fulfilled.”

“And those you sent remain in the city?”

“More than that, Sharífa. Those I sent saw the steward, Hassan, leave Dumea and go beyond the Narrow, into Súnam.”

“The Summerlands? When?”

“Less than two weeks ago. I received word only today. They say he met with one of the daughters of Queen Umani.”

“Umani?” Chalise watched the ground as she resumed her pacing.

“Sharífa?”

“I’m thinking…”

Gahíd leaned back and turned his gaze to the street.

Chalise, after a few moments, came to a stop and turned to face him. “The ones you sent to spy on Hassan,” she said. “They are of the same sharím as these rebels?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will have them return. If there are any who will know why these betrayers are doing as they are it will be those who’ve spent most of their lives with them. They may be able to tell us something of their aims, even unknowingly, perhaps we will learn what they plan next. You will question them, and then send word to me.”

“And Súnam?”

“Súnam will wait,” she said. “For now, at least.” She turned to start back toward the market. “The Sovereign council is against me, Gahíd. They will not agree to act against the Summerlands. When the time comes, it will be the Brotherhood that shall be called upon to do what must be done. Which is why we must first take the thorn from our own foot before we seek to tread on another’s.”

With that she strode away across the clearing. Gahíd watched the chamberlain, Elias, come to her side as she turned again and beckoned to the waiting Abda. The bodyguard glanced to Gahíd. Gahíd nodded at her, releasing her to return to the sharífa. It was only as she obeyed that Gahíd noticed the chamberlain watching him, the old man’s gaze lingering for a moment across the distance before he too finally turned to follow the queen.