“As if you were,” Kolthoum corrected.
“As if I was,” Hajjaj repeated. “I don’t think the condition would be contrary to fact, and so it doesn’t need the subjunctive.” He grinned at Kolthoum. Not even Qutuz, his secretary, quibbled with him over grammar.
She grinned back, unabashed, and stuck out her tongue at him as if she were a cheeky young girl herself. “You don’t know whether the condition is contrary to fact or not, because you haven’t bothered finding out,” she said.
“True-I haven’t,” he said. “And doesn’t that tell you something all by itself?”
“It tells me you are an old-fashioned gentleman,” Kolthoum answered, “which is nothing I haven’t known for a good many years. But, if you are going to make choices for this woman, don’t you think you ought to know what she wants for herself?”
“Now I know why you let me win the grammatical arguments,” Hajjaj said. Kolthoum made a small, questioning noise. He explained: “So I won’t feel too disappointed when you win the ones that matter.”
His senior wife hid her face in her hands. “My secret’s out. What shall I do?” she asked, her voice muffled behind her palms.
Slipping an arm around her shoulder, Hajjaj said, “When we have this between us, why do I need a young woman, a stranger?”
“Why?” Kolthoum reached out and gently stroked him between the legs. “That’s why.”
“There. You see? I already have a shameless woman, too.” Hajjaj kissed her. More than a little to his own surprise, he found himself rising to the occasion. He and Kolthoum made love slowly, lazily; somehow, the lack of urgency, the lack of fuss, added to his enjoyment-and, he hoped, hers-rather than taking away from it. Afterwards he said, “I didn’t expect that to happen.”
“Neither did I.” Kolthoum wagged a forefinger in front of his nose. “But you’re not going to use it as an excuse to keep from asking Tassi what she wants.”
“Aye, my dear,” Hajjaj answered. Under the circumstances, he could hardly say no.
Having made the promise, he had to keep it. A couple of days later, he askedTewfik to bring Tassi into his study. The majordomo nodded. “Just as you say, your Excellency.” His wrinkled, jowly face gave no hint of what he thought. He shuffled off and returned a few minutes later withMinisterIskakis ’ runaway wife.
“Good day, your Excellency,” she said in her careful Algarvian, dipping her head to Hajjaj. She was still bare, and still seemed barer than any Zuwayzi would have-but then, she would also have seemed out of place in his house had she chosen to wear clothes.
“And a good day to you,” Hajjaj replied in the same language. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Would you care for tea and wine and cakes?” When she dipped her head in Yaninan-style agreement, Hajjaj nodded toTewfik, who waited in the doorway. The majordomo left and returned with a silver tray bearing the essentials of Zuwayzi hospitality.
While Tassi and Hajjaj ate and drank, they stuck to small talk. He wondered if she knew the social rules of his kingdom. He had, from time to time, used them to annoy foreigners. Now she seemed as content with delay as he was.
But, at last, he could avoid things no longer. “Tell me,” he said, “what am I to do with you?”
“Whatever suits your kingdom best, of course,” Tassi answered. “That is the way of such things, is it not so?” She spoke with a curious bitter resignation.
Hajjaj shook his head. “Not necessarily. Not entirely. If I thought only about what suited my kingdom best, I would have sent you back to your husband at once. Do you doubt it, even for an instant?”
“No,” she said in a small voice.
“All right, then,” Hajjaj said. “We understand each other, at least so far. If you had your choice, what would you do?”
“Blaze my father when he made the match with Iskakis,” Tassi replied without hesitation. “He could not have done worse if he tried for a hundred years.”
“You cannot do anything about that now. Of the things you can do, what would you do?”
“I have no good answers for you,” Tassi said, and Hajjaj nodded: he hadn’t expected her to have any good answers. She went on, “If you are willing to let me stay here, I would like to do that. No one bothers me here. Until now, I have never been in a place where no one bothers me.”
Well, Hajjaj thought with wry amusement, this is hardly the time to ask if she wants to keep my bed warm. Not even Kolthoum could argue with me about that, not after what she just said. Even so, his eyes traveled the length of her. Maybe it was the way her nipples and the hair between her legs stood out against her light skin that made her seem more naked than a Zuwayzi woman would have. That was the closest he’d come to an explanation that made sense, anyhow.
She mistook his silence for one of a rather different sort. Or perhaps it wasn’t so different after all. As she had when she dropped to her knees in the doorway, she said, “I would do anything to be able to stay here, anything you might ask me.”
That could mean only one thing. Hajjaj said, “If I took you up on that, you would not be able to say that no one here bothered you.”
“I do not think it would be much of a bother,” Tassi said.
And what is that supposed to mean? Hajjaj wondered. That she wouldn’t mind doing whatever he wanted or that she didn’t think he would want anything very often? He didn’t ask the question. Not asking was better when he didn’t really want to know the answer. Instead, he said, “You are welcome to stay here for as long as you like, but I do not think you can make this your true home. You are a young woman. One day, very likely, you will want to start a family of your own, and you will need to meet a man whose family is of a rank to match yours.”
Tassi tossed her head so vigorously, her dark curls flew. Yaninans used that gesture when they meantNo. She said, “Bloodlines are splendid-in a horse or a unicorn.” A Zuwayzi would have spoken of camels. “But Iskakis has some of the best blood in Yanina, and how much joy did my marriage to him bring me?”
“Iskakis also has some… special tastes,” Hajjaj pointed out, as delicately as he could.
“I know.” She grimaced. “He tried them with me a few times. They hurt, if you must know. But even so, I did not much interest him that way.”
Then he was a fool. But Hajjaj did not say that aloud. Tassi was too likely to judge he wanted pleasure from her body. And he knew he might, though taking it seemed more trouble than it was worth. “You may stay here- unbothered-for as long as you like,” was what he did end up saying.
“Thank you,” Tassi said softly.
“You are welcome,” Hajjaj replied, “and you may take that however you like.”
The ley-line ship slid to a halt. Since it wasn’t moving any more, it settled down into the water instead of gliding above all but the worst of the waves. “Well, we’re here,” Istvan said, “whereverhere is and whatever the Kuusamans are going to do with us now.”
“They don’t dare treat us too badly,”Kun said. “Gyongyos has plenty of Kuusaman captives, and our people can take revenge on them.”
“They haven’t done anything too horrible yet,” Szonyi said. “They’ve given us plenty of food, even if it is accursed fish all the time. If I eat any more fish, I’ll grow fins.”
CaptainFrigyessaid, “They are islanders. They eat fish themselves. They give us the same rations they give their own warriors. That is honorable.” No matter how honorable it was, Istvan’s company commander had been sunk in gloom ever since the Kuusamans captured him on Becsehely. He’d been ready to lay down his life to power the sorcery that would help drive the enemy off the island. He’d been ready, aye, but he hadn’t got the chance-and Becsehely had fallen, as so many other islands in the Bothnian Ocean had fallen to Kuusamo.
“We did all we could, Captain,” Istvan said, not for the first time. “The stars will still shine on us. We didn’t do anything to make them want to withhold their light.”