Out of the Darkness

With a sigh, Hajjaj said, “And now we have to make the best of it.” The Unkerlanters had made Zuwayza switch sides. They’d made her yield land, and yield ports for her ships. They’d made her promise to consult with them on issues pertaining to their dealings with other kingdoms-that particularly galled Hajjaj. But they hadn’t deposed King Shazli and set up the Reformed Principality of Zuwayza with a puppet prince, as they’d threatened to do during the war. They hadn’t deposed Shazli and set up Ansovald as governor in Bishah, either. However much Hajjaj disliked Swemmel and his countrymen, they might have done worse than they had.

And they would have, if they weren’t still fighting hard against Algarve-and not quite so hard against Gyongyos, Hajjaj thought. Well, if they’ve chosen to be sensible, I won’t complain.

One of the king’s serving women came into the office and curtsied to Hajjaj. “May it please your Excellency, his Majesty would confer with you,” she said. But for some beads and bracelets and rings, she wore no more than Hajjaj and Qutuz. Hajjaj noticed her nudity more than he would have if he hadn’t just come from a kingdom where women shrouded themselves in baggy, ankle-length tunics.

“Thank you, Maryem,” he replied. “I’ll come, of course.”

He followed her to Shazli’s private audience chamber. He enjoyed following her; she was well-made and shapely. But I don’t stare like the pale-skinned foreigners who drape themselves, he thought. We may scandalize them, but who really has the more barbarous way of looking at things? He chuckled to himself. If he hadn’t studied at the University of Trapani in Algarve, such a notion probably never would have occurred to him.

“Your Majesty,” he murmured, bowing as he came into King Shazli’s presence.

“Always a pleasure to see you, your Excellency,” Shazli replied. He too was nude, but for sandals and a thin gold circlet on his brow. He was a slightly plump man-nearing forty now, which startled Hajjaj whenever he thought about it- with a sharp mind and a good heart, though perhaps without enormous force of character. Hajjaj liked him, and had since he was a baby. “Please, sit down,” the king said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.” Zuwayzin used thick rugs and piles of cushions in place of the chairs and sofas common elsewhere in Derlavai. Hajjaj made himself a mound of them and leaned back against it.

Shazli waited till he’d finished, then asked, “Shall I have tea and wine and cakes sent in?”

“As you wish, your Majesty. If you would rather get down to business, I shan’t be offended.” Zuwayzin wasted endless convivial hours in the ritual of hospitality surrounding tea and wine and cakes. Hajjaj often used them as a diplomatic weapon when he didn’t feel like talking about something right away.

“No, no.” Shazli hadn’t had a foreign education, and clung to traditional Zuwayzi ways more strongly than his much older foreign minister. And so another serving girl fetched in tea fragrant with mint, date wine (Hajjaj actually preferred grape wine, but the thicker, sweeter stuff did cast his memory back to childhood), and cakes dusted with sugar and full of pistachios and cashews. Only small talk passed over tea and wine and cakes. Today, Hajjaj endured the rituals instead of enjoying them.

At last, the king sighed and blotted his lips with a linen napkin and remarked, “The first Unkerlanter ships put in at Najran today.”

“I hope they were suitably dismayed,” Hajjaj remarked.

“Indeed,” King Shazli said. “I am given to understand that their captains made some pointed remarks to the officers in charge of the port.”

“I warned Ansovald when I signed the peace agreement that the Unkerlanters would get less use from our eastern ports than they seemed to expect,” Hajjaj said. “They didn’t seem to believe me. The only reason Najran is a port at all is that a ley line runs through it and out into the Bay of Ajlun.” He’d been there. Even by Zuwayzi standards, it was a sun-blazed, desolate place.

“You understand that, your Excellency, and I also understand it,” Shazli said. “But if the Unkerlanters fail to understand it, they could make our lives very unpleasant. If they land soldiers at Najran …”

“Those soldiers can make the acquaintance of the Kaunians who managed to escape from Forthweg,” Hajjaj said. “I don’t know how much else they could do. Even now, when the weather is as cool and wet as it ever gets, I can hardly see them marching overland to Bishah. Can you, your Majesty?”

“Well, possibly not,” the king admitted. “But if they want an excuse to revise the agreement they forced on us …”