Through the Darkness

“A while,” Hajjaj replied. “Not indefinitely. And, before it is secret no more, I had better get King Shazli’s views on the matter.” I had better see if I can bring King Shazli’s views around to my own, if they happen to differ now. “I don’t think that will wait. Please let his Majesty’s servitors know that I seek audience with him at his earliest convenience.”

His secretary bowed. “I shall attend to it directly, your Excellency,” he said, and hurried away. Hajjaj nodded at his bare brown departing backside: like all Zuwayzin, Qutuz wore clothes only when dealing with important foreigners. Hajjaj’s secretary was diligent, no doubt about it. When he said directly, he meant it.

And, only a couple of hours later that afternoon, Hajjaj bowed low before the king. “I gather this is a matter of some urgency,” Shazli said. He was a bright enough lad, or so Hajjaj thought of him--the late sixties looking back at the early thirties. “Shall we dispense with the rituals of hospitality, then?”

“If your Majesty would be so kind,” Hajjaj replied, and the king inclined his head. Thus encouraged, Hajjaj continued, “You need to declare your policy on a matter of both some delicacy and some importance to the kingdom.”

“Say on,” Shazli told him.

“I shall.” Hajjaj brandished the papers Qutuz had given him. “In the past couple of weeks, we have had no fewer than three small boats reach our eastern coastline from Forthweg. All three were packed almost to the sinking point with Kaunians, and all the Kaunians alive when they came ashore have begged asylum of us.”

Sometimes, to flavor a dish, Zuwayzi chefs would fill a little cheesecloth bag with spices and put it in the pot. They were supposed to take it out when the meal was cooked, but every once in a while they forgot. Shazli looked like a man who had just bitten down on one of those bags thinking it a lump of meat.

“They beg asylum from us because of what our allies are doing to their folk back in Forthweg.”

“Even so, your Majesty,” Hajjaj agreed. “If we send them back, we send them to certain death. If we grant them asylum, we offend the Algarvians as soon as they learn of it, and we run the risk that everything in Forthweg that floats will put to sea and head straight for Zuwayza.”

“What Algarve is doing to the Kaunians in Forthweg offends me,” Shazli said; he needed only the royal we to sound as imperious as King Swemmel of Unkerlant. Hajjaj had never felt prouder of him. The king went on, “And any Kaunians who escape will be a cut above the common crowd--is it not so?”

“It’s likely, at any rate, your Majesty,” the foreign minister answered.

“Asylum they shall have, then,” Shazli declared.

Hajjaj bowed as deeply as his age-stiffened body would let him. “I am honored to serve you. But what shall we say to Marquis Balastro when he learns of it, as he surely will before long?”

King Shazli smiled a warm, confident smile. Hajjaj knew what that sort of smile had to mean even before the king said, “That I leave to you, your Excellency. I am sure you will find a way to let us do what is right while at the same time not enraging our ally’s minister.”

“I wish I were so sure, your Majesty,” Hajjaj said. “I do remind you, I am only a man, not one of the powers above. I can do one of those things or the other. I have no idea how to do both at once.”

“You’ve been managing the impossible now for as long as Zuwayza has had her freedom back from Unkerlant,” Shazli said. “Do you wonder when I tell you I think you can do it again?”

“Your Majesty, may I have your leave to go?” Hajjaj asked. That was as close as he’d ever come to being rude to his sovereign. He softened it at once by adding, “If I am to do this--if I am to try to do this--I shall need to lay a groundwork for it, if I possibly can.”

“You may go, of course,” Shazli said, “and good fortune attend your groundlaying.” But he’d heard the edge in his foreign minister’s voice. By his sour expression, he didn’t care for it. Bowing his way out, Hajjaj didn’t care for being put in a position where he had to snap at the king.

When the foreign minister got back to his office, Qutuz raised an inquiring eyebrow. “They will stay,” Hajjaj said. “All I have to do now is devise a convincing explanation for Marquis Balastro as to why they may stay.”

“No small order,” his secretary observed. “If anyone can do it, though, you are the man.”

Again, Hajjaj was bemused that others had so much more faith in him than he had in himself. Since Shazli had given him the task, though, he had to try to do it. “Bring me a city directory for Bishah, if you would be so kind,” he said.

Qutuz’s eyebrows climbed again. “A city directory?” he echoed. Hajjaj nodded and offered not a word of explanation. His secretary mumbled something under his breath. Now Hajjaj’s eyebrow rose, in challenge. Qutuz had no choice but to go fetch a directory. But he was still mumbling as he went.