Khamsin finally slowed at the outskirts of the city. Azzad had no notion of where they were or how many people had been trampled to get them there. He understood one thing only: the Sheyqa had murdered helpless women and children in their beds, and she would have no qualms about murdering every man of the al-Ma’aliq at the palace tonight.
His cousin Ammineh too would die and her baby with her—no, Sayyida was the granddaughter of the Sheyqa, she would be spared. And she would be the only al-Ma’aliq left.
Unless Azzad could get to the palace in time.
The Sheyqa’s servants delicately, unobtrusively guided the men in bronze silk robes to walk through the hammered silver doors of the banqueting hall together, and to file into the courtyard together, and to sit on the front two rows of benches together. The al-Ma’aliq were too flush with drink to notice that some of these servants had never been seen before in the palace—indeed, not in Dayira Azreyq, nor even in Rimmal Madar. And after tonight, they would never be seen within the country’s borders again.
The Sheyqa had her own separate platform, with a canopy of crimson. Torches blazed in the courtyard, lighting the vast expanse of hardened earth where every day the Qoundi Ammar practiced drills, most of them showy and all of them lethal. After two hundred and seventy al-Ma’aliq had settled their smugly drunken selves on tapestry cushions, Sheyqa Nizzira signaled for the tribute to begin.
An intricate pattern woven in sleek white horses and crimson tunics and flashing silver trappings delighted the eye, even as the ear marveled at the precision of hooves—one hundred horses moving as one, without a single doubled beat. No horse stepped out of sequence with another. The Sheyqa nodded satisfaction at the preservation of tradition: thus had the Qoundi Ammar fooled barbarian invaders in a famous battle, making them think that a single horse approached through a twisting ravine. The foreigners’ leader was slaughtered, and five hundred soldiers besides, by one hundred men on horseback who sounded like a single rider. At the end of the drill, the audience cheered and whistled. The Sheyqa saw the eunuch Arrif nod to the qabda’an, and she hid a smile.
Turning smartly, the hundred rode back to the other end of the courtyard. At the faint hiss of steel and the sword flashes by torchlight, the Sheyqa leaned back in her throne, eyes narrowed. Slowly, then with increasing speed, long swords circled over the riders’ heads until it seemed each sat beneath a silver whirlwind. Then an ax appeared beside each man, a smaller but even brighter counterpoint to the brilliant spinning cyclones of steel. Light blazed, and the audience gasped, then cheered.
Suddenly one hundred white horses thundered forward shoulder-to-shoulder at a dead gallop, their riders roaring the Sheyqa’s name. A scant armlength from the seats, the horses skidded to a halt, the riders bellowed the Sheyqa’s name once more, and the flame-burnished whirlwinds of swords and axes flew straight into the hearts of the al-Ma’aliq.
Cheeks soot-streaked and eyes frenzied, his fine blue cloak singed, Azzad was unrecognizable as his family’s most elegant wastrel. Riding along the avenue of plane trees and oleander hedges that led to the reservoir and the Qoundi Ammar barracks that guarded it, he saw in the near distance a small troop on horseback. Melting into the shadows, whispering a silencing word to Khamsin, he waited for them to pass.
There were fifteen of them, all in dark crimson tunics, riding the white stallions of the Qoundi Ammar that looked like ghost horses by moonlight. One of the men wore a gold-and-ruby armband. Another repeatedly tossed into the air a long dagger, catching it neatly by the jewel-studded hilt. A third flourished a white silk cloak, embroidered around the edges with autumnbronze leaves.
The armband belonged to his uncle and the dagger to his older brother. And the cloak—he’d watched his sisters stitch the complicated patterns on the great frame in their workroom, hurrying to finish it in time for their father’s birthday.
“Do you realize what the launderers will charge to get the vomit out of this?” complained the man wearing the cloak.
“Puke soaks out,” said another man, who had a length of bronze silk draped across his saddle. “This one will have a bloodstain even if it’s washed a hundred times!”
“At least we got the best pickings,” advised the one wearing the armband. “Pity the poor menials who’ll have to clean up half the palace, with not even a ring left on any of the bodies! Poisoned vomit on the banqueting floor, blood flowing all over the courtyard, every cushion ruined—”
His companions jeered at him for worrying like a house-proud eunuch. Then they rode past the place where Azzad sat trembling in his saddle, and he could hear their voices no more.
“Eminent Majesty,” said the eunuch, concluding his report, “Beit Ma’aliq will be gutted by morning. All within the house are dead. Regrettably—”
“What?” snapped the Sheyqa, glancing up from cooing to newborn Sayyida, who lay sleeping on her knees. She truly was a pretty little thing, and looked just like her grandmother—but for the unfortunate chin.
“Regret, Esteemed Lady, for the houses nearby that caught fire,” he said quickly. “Eleven, before those flames were extinguished.”
“And how did this happen?”
“Unknown, Majesty. But may I humbly suggest that part of the confiscated funds be used to rebuild those houses and repair damage to the others? After all, it was an al-Ma’aliq servant who tipped over a lamp and started the fire.” An unnecessary reminder of the official reason for the conflagration; the explanation would fool no one and was not intended to do so. “Thus it would be a magnanimous gesture on Your Illustrious Majesty’s part—”
“How much will it cost me to be magnanimous?”
“Not more than a tenth part of the whole, Beloved Lady.”
“Oh, very well. It seems I can afford it. What else? It grows late, and my darling little girl wants her nurse.” She glanced over to the bronze-draped bed, where a beautiful young woman lay in the tangle of her hip-length black hair. She was perfectly still and perfectly silent. At long last, silent.
“I expect word by tomorrow evening of the extermination of everyone at the other al-Ma’aliq holdings by the . . .” He paused delicately. “. . . the relatives of Your Exaltedness.”
“My orders were clear—spare no one, not even the lowliest kitchen boy.”
“So it shall be, Majesty,” Arrif replied with a bow. “I have prepared a list of candidates to replace the managers and most skilled crafters at all the estates.” After a thoughtful pause, he continued, “The fallahin in their villages will also be killed. I surmised that Your Majesty would not wish any alMa’aliq supporters to survive. Listeners in the city will inform us of who expresses sympathy here.”
“Do what you must,” Sheyqa Nizzira replied. “Just so the castle is kept in perfect order for someone to inherit one day. I think it shall be Reihan. For all he is but seven years old, he pleases me more every day. So manly, so clever!”
“As Your Exaltedness wishes, so shall it be done.”
The Sheyqa looked up when the eunuch didn’t leave. “Ayia, what else?”
“Only one thing, Majesty,” Arrif admitted reluctantly. “The count has been made five times. One hundred twenty-six dead of poison, two hundred sixty-nine of sword or axe.”
The Sheyqa swore luridly. The baby started to cry.
“A total,” Arrif concluded, staring at the carpet, “of three hundred ninety-five. One is missing.”
“Which?”
“The qabda’an believes it is the young man who had the temerity to apply to the Qoundi Ammar. Azzad, younger son of Yuzuf.”