Thirty-Nine

M A M M O N

 

“The old comely hag was besotted with him,” Barat said.

Yasmin just looked at him. Even with Yaram’s counsel it had taken more than a week to find this man, seven days of bribes and whispers and winks and waiting. Yet after no more than an hour in his presence she was already beginning to regret the meeting. Not wholesome, Yaram had called him. The old man could barely have spoken better truth. Barat sat there, loudly chewing aromatic leaves of some kind, plucking them from the stems and branches of a clipping he held loosely in one fat meaty paw. Yasmin noticed the odd white bud along the branches but felt no inclination to ask what flower it was. Fear she’d be offered one. Fear at being here.

They were sitting in a sort of shack, wood planks and fodder scattered loosely over the top for roofing, lying abreast of brick walls roughly a man’s height. The shack cornered what Yasmin assumed, from the smell, to be a garden, where Barat had plucked the strangely fragrant branch. As for where that garden was, she had no idea. She and Mulaam had met Barat’s man outside the city in a grove of pomegranates. They’d been blindfolded, led away, brought here, the blindfold only removed once she’d been taken to sit in this small narrow hut. When the rag over her eyes lifted, Yasmin found herself sitting opposite the bare-chested, shaven-headed, pot-bellied Barat with Mulaam nowhere to be seen. Barat smilingly went on to introduce himself, counselled her not to be concerned with Mulaam’s whereabouts, he was safe, he was fine, mere precautions, and then commenced answering her questions.

Yasmin watched as the man leant forward, letting his broad, hairy stomach hang between his thighs as he eyed her and smirked, half-smile, half-sneer, making the row of gold earrings in his chubby left lobe tip and jingle. His voice was a low, gentle growl. His sweaty lips sifted through a thick black beard as he spoke.

“Zaqeem was besotted with her too,” he continued. “You try to warn a man in these things, but once he’s heat in his loins there’s no sense in him. Might as well reason with a bear over meat.”

Yasmin tried not to let her revulsion show. “And you are sure it was her?” she said.

“Sure as the silver Zaqeem paid me to keep it secret. I saw her with my own two eyes. It is as I’ve said, the sovereign queen is a comely one. And I seldom forget a comely face.”

The man sat back again, rubbed the bullish red girth of his neck and let his back rest with a gentle slap against the wall behind.

Yasmin cleared her throat and tried not to fidget. Her hand was trembling. They’d taken her purse already when they came upon them in the grove, pulling the wool rag over her eyes from behind before manhandling her all the way here.

She swallowed. Her throat was dry. She decided against asking for water. “How was it arranged?” she said instead.

“Zaqeem would bring the silver to my man. I’d set a place for them, different each time. I’ve many houses in the city, and many friends whose house I might borrow, sometimes by favour,” he smiled. “Other times by force. After the place was set I’d bring her to it, then send word to him of where to go.”

“Bring her to it?” Yasmin said. “How?”

“Ah, Dumean…” That was the other thing that made Yasmin nervous. It was rare for men this far east to know the accent, most here seldom travelled west of the Yellow River. That Barat evidently had, and had taken to nonchalantly addressing Yasmin accordingly, only served to discomfort her further. Which, from what Yasmin could tell, seemed to be precisely Barat’s aim. “I told you at the start,” he said. “Some questions I answer for silver, others for gold.”

Yasmin swallowed dryly. She could almost feel the heat of the other man the shack was so small. “Perhaps you can tell me how long it went on for then,” she said. “How it began?”

“Agh.” Barat slapped his ample stomach and tossed a palm at the air; a Haránite gesture. “How it began? Who can tell? Zaqeem was given to banquets. His tastes always ran richer than his pockets. The best wine, the best food, the best dancing and music and all else. He often found himself in company humbler souls such as you or I never would. It was part of his charm. Some days I’d be tempted to cancel a debt of his here or there, just to hear another tale of his doings. I never did though – cancel a debt that is, I’m not that way minded – but if I was, Zaqeem would’ve been the one to draw it from me.” The man smiled again, plucked another leaf from the stem and tossed it into his mouth and crunched.

“What of how long?”

“Hah. How long? Listen, he came to me when he’d found no other way around it, when he’d begun to feel the danger of his doings. He may have been at it a year or more before then for all I know. All I can say was I helped him this way for a year myself.”

“A year? That long?”

Barat looked at Yasmin; it could almost have been pity if not for the grin. “Yes, Dumean. That long.”

Yasmin breathed in the truths, forcing them down like bitterleaf. Bilyana’s words together with Barat’s not only placed the sovereign queen in Zaqeem’s lap, it made her the most likely means by which he came upon his secret – a banished heir still living, and an ineligible one on the throne. It was enough to split the Sovereignty. So why would the sharífa have told Zaqeem? Why risk war? Stray words born of fondness? Or was there some other reason? “You say he began to feel the danger of his doings…”

Barat shrugged, tipped his big hairless skull and grimaced, cracking a bone in his neck. “Zaqeem was a reckless sort,” he said. “Like me. But just because the moth likes the light of the flame does not mean he cannot feel its heat. That last week I could tell he felt it. It’s why I set them a place away from here. Zaqeem insisted. Said people were following him. If any other man had told me that I’d have slit his throat ear to ear where he stood. The kinds of people who talk of being followed, they’re either careless or sullied. Neither one is good for business. But like I said, I liked Zaqeem. He was the kind to bring out my forgiving side. And so I set him a place far away from here, just north of the Havilah.” Barat took another leaf from the branch and folded it into his mouth. “It saddens me now, but then what choice did I have. The offer was good, a lot of gold. A man has to do what is best for himself.”

“How much did he pay you?” Yasmin asked.

“No, Dumean, it was a she. Comely also.”

“I don’t understand. You said Zaqeem was the one who–”

“Listen to me, Dumean. There would be a banquet in the township where I sent him, a rich banquet. They have many in the townships there, by the Crescent. And so Zaqeem would be there too, at the banquet, and then leave to meet the sharífa in the place I set for him. But there would be no sharífa… Zaqeem would meet those who’d been sent for him instead.”

“Sent? I don’t understand what–”

“Too much gold you see, Dumean. A man like me, I must do what is best for myself. It saddens me, yes. Just like us, here, today. This saddens me too. But as I have said, a man must look to himself and his own.”

It was then the men came in. They were not Barat’s men. They wore the pale tunics and tan sashes of the cityguard. They pulled Yasmin to her feet roughly, yanking her up by the arms.

“I am sorry, Dumean,” Barat said. But when Yasmin, being hauled from the shack by the armpits, turned to look back, Barat was smiling.

 

An hour later Yasmin was sitting in what felt like a small wicker chair in a corner chamber, underground somewhere, listening to the shuffled scrape of leather on stone behind her as unknown footsteps made their way down a stairway to where she sat, bound and alone. Again her eyes had been covered, a sack this time, tossed over her head as they dragged her, toes scraping, from Barat’s presence to wherever she now was. The fabric was rough and tickled her nose, itching her nostrils. She kept wanting to sneeze.

“You’re a curious one, aren’t you?”

A man’s voice, quiet and smooth. Very calm. Yasmin didn’t recognize it.

“Yes, you are very curious, asking questions wherever you go. Many questions… But tell me, what is it you seek?”

“Who are you?”

“Me? No more than an onlooker. Curious, like you.”

“The men who brought me here were soldiers of the cityguard. You are of the royal house.”

“Am I? Well, if you say so. But then I am not the one sitting bound and masked. And I am not the mother to a young son who has come to a strange city to ask dangerous questions. And so, unlike you, who I am does not carry consequence… He is a handsome boy by the way, your son, I mean. Noah, isn’t it? Isn’t that his name?”

“You would harm a child?”

“Harm? Who spoke of harm? I merely make conversation and now you say such things. But then again, perhaps it is not so strange. It’s said the heart of the guilty can weigh heavily; it can make one given to skittishness. Perhaps this is what ails you – guilt. But fear not. Confession is good for the soul. You ought to think of me as your remedy.”

“Remedy? Confession? I am–”

Yasmin felt the fist strike her jaw and ear hard. The left side of her face exploded with numbness, then pain, her left ear ringing.

“Now that was rude, wasn’t it? A little out of turn, speaking to me that way. Raised voice and so forth. You’re a guest here, after all. I understand you are distressed but it doesn’t do to insult your host now, does it?”

Yasmin almost choked on the shock. She could feel the pain blossoming across her face. “A guest? Your men dragged me here. I am a prisoner.”

This time she was struck in the mouth. The blow hammered square on her lips and just below her nose. She could feel her face beginning to bruise and blood leaking along the inside of her lips and gums. Her tongue stung.

“And now you insult my hospitality too. I expected better than this. I hope you’re not teaching such poor manners to your dear son.”

Yasmin couldn’t spit out the blood with the sack still over her head and so she swallowed it instead, coppery and sour, gulping it down along with the sob that had begun to swell in her throat. She coughed. Breathed deep. Her voice a croak. “What do you want?”

“Ah, now that is a little better. I’d have thought it impolite to ask but now you mention it there is something you could help me with. This Governor Zaqeem, you see, the one you are asking everyone of. What happened to him, it was a very tragic thing. You were his sister, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good, good, then you will appreciate better than most the anguish caused by the misfortune of his passing. When a loved one dies it is never an easy thing. More so when that death is premature. It compels feelings of… frustration, anger, confusion. It can all seem such a waste, yes? Especially when the departed is a soul so… noble as Zaqeem’s was. It is only natural for his dearest to have questions. After all, what salve can ever better that of understanding? What other balm for suffering is there save an answer to that everlasting question – why? Far be it from me to deny the gropings of grief, I count it her unenviable prerogative to seek what comfort she can. Nonetheless… sometimes her hungry claws can grope too far, trample the healing wounds of others. Governor Zaqeem was an esteemed and well-loved man as you will know. The bringing up of these questions, well… it is unseemly, and for many, very painful. Sometimes it is the call of kindness and consideration that asks us to stay our impulses, however natural they may seem.”

“You want me to stop asking questions.”

“Ah, you see. I could tell you were of a generous spirit, Yasmin. Very generous. It will be my hope that your son lives long, free from harm, to learn the generosity of his mother. It would be a shame for such traits to perish in the one who has them, before she has had chance to confer them on her offspring… it would be a tragedy not unlike the one that befell good Zaqeem, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I understand.”

“Good. Good. I am happy. Is it not a wholesome thing when parties can come to agreement? Perhaps as a show of goodwill you will make your departure from the city by week’s end. It is not that you’re unwelcome, of course. It’s just there are some for whom being reminded of these things has been too much to bear. I fear your continuing presence here would make them… uneasy.”

“I will leave.”

“Good. Very good.” Yasmin flinched when she heard the man rise from his seat. “In that case I shall bid you farewell. And hope the next time we meet that we can do so in less discomforting circumstances.”

Yasmin listened as he walked across the room and slowly past her toward the exit before stopping to mutter with another standing there. The man then walked up the steps from where he’d entered and through what sounded like a shackled door at the top.

 

They dumped her an hour later, sack on head, tossing her blindly to the hard soaked grit of a rain-drenched road. She pulled away the dull abrasive cloth, roughly puffing its hairs and threads from her nostrils and brushing them from her head to find she was in the straight street again, yards from Rona’s inn, alone. No Mulaam. She climbed to her feet. There were few in the road: an old woman, with a black scarf wrapped tight to her small frail skull and blacker eyes, stared silently as Yasmin wandered through the waning late afternoon sun. Perched on the step of her house’s doorway, she squinted at Yasmin as she passed, her mealy wrinkled jaw chewing. They’d dumped her here deliberately, Yasmin knew, to show how long they’d been watching her, to show they knew of her visit to Rona. Yasmin tried not to think of what might have become of her. Or might she have been the one who told them of her inquiries in the first place?

She walked through the city back to Yaram’s house, hoping to find Mulaam there.

When she came in she found the old man sitting with Noah, stooped over a scroll with a finger poised, pointing at the page. What was the child doing here? When had he arrived? Noah turned and stood when he saw her. The boy smiled only briefly, and then his face slackened, his eyes darting fearfully back to Yaram. Yasmin felt the swelling along her jaw and was trying to imagine how she looked and how long Noah had been here when Hassan came in from the kitchen.

She saw the colour drain from her husband’s face as he looked her over; her rumpled shift and cloak, dirtied elbows, sweaty brow, bloodied lip, bruised and swollen mouth. “Gods… who did this to you?”

“You’re here,” Yasmin said, wonderingly.

“When I realized you had left Dumea, and that you had taken Mulaam with you…” He looked about her, in search of the servant. “Who did this to you, Yasmin?”

Yasmin saw the tears welling in her husband’s eyes and choked up the sob she’d swallowed. Her shoulders heaved and shivered as he came across the room and held her. “We must…” she whispered as he squeezed her to him. “We must leave the city at once.”

“Leave? No. Whoever has done this will pay and–”

“Hassan,” Yaram said. Hassan turned to look at him. “You must listen to your wife. You must do what she asks. And you must do it quickly.”