Dawoud gave him a look of loving sympathy. Litaz stood, walked over, and took his big hands in her tiny ones. She squeezed, smiled sadly, said nothing.
Raseed, finally looking up from his exercises, spoke confusedly. “Doctor, I don’t understand—”
“You and your understanding can go down to the Lake of Flame, boy! Now shut up—we’ve more important things to discuss! Where is the tribeswoman, anyway? Off stalking the city for gazelles?”
“I’m here, Doctor,” Zamia said, emerging from the back of the house where she’d no doubt been making water. Adoulla noted that she walked more or less steadily on her feet and that much of the weakness he’d seen in her only last night was gone. “Did you learn anything that will help me avenge my band?”
To his surprise, Adoulla found that he could not speak of Yehyeh’s murder. It was foolish, he knew—these were his closest friends in the world, and allies who needed all of the information they could get. But Adoulla thought of Litaz trying to find drops of Yehyeh’s blood or some such, or trying to analyze the angle at which his heart had been ripped out. And he felt that his own soul would somehow snap if he did not keep this one bit of grimness to himself for now. So, as his friends and allies listened, Adoulla instead recounted what little else Miri had known, and told them about the thrice-ciphered, hidden script scroll that spoke of the Cobra Throne. “Though All-Merciful God alone knows how we’re going to unravel these cipher-spells. The costs and the expertise involved…” he trailed off, exhausted and daunted by just about everything in his life.
Litaz shot a worried look in her husband’s direction. “Actually, I do know of one man who might have the skill and inclination to help us with this. And he would do it quickly if I asked.”
Dawoud’s expression was perplexed, then bitter. “Him. Well, I have no doubt that that one will be all too ready to help. He will be falling all over himself to give you what you need. At a price.”
Adoulla smiled. “Yaseer the spell-seller. Of course. It seems, then, that I am not the only one fated by God to get help from an old heart’s-flame.”
Litaz sighed. “He will gouge us but will do so less severely than others would. And he’ll do honest and discreet work. If I send a messenger now, I should be able to see him by tomorrow.”
“By all means, send a messenger. And you should take the boy with you tomorrow.”
Both Litaz and Raseed started to speak, but Adoulla cut them both off. “I know, I know. You can take care of yourself,” he said, gesturing with one hand toward Litaz. “And your place is protecting me, or Zamia, or whomever you’ve decided duty dictates today,” he continued, gesturing with his other hand toward Raseed. “But between Dawoud and Zamia and myself we can, Almighty God willing, handle any threat that might strike here. You’ll be carrying a great deal of coin, Litaz—and even aside from that, the more I think on it, the less comfortable I am with any of us being alone out there. Indulge me, eh?”
With that Adoulla walked off and made water before dragging himself to the makeshift bed his friends had set for him. He was exhausted, but he could not stop thinking about Yehyeh. And about Miri. The choice she had made. The oath Adoulla himself had made. Miri’s words, thousands of days, thousands of nights, echoed in his head, as did Yehyeh’s words about old men and graves.
Sleep was a long time in coming.
Chapter 14
There was a clean tang to the late morning air, and Raseed bas Raseed breathed it in deeply as he made his way toward the North Inner Gate. Litaz Daughter-of-Likami walked a half step in front of him, dressed more richly than Raseed had ever seen. Her long dress was embroidered with amethyst gemthread. She wore rings of gold and coral in her twistlocks, and a jewel-pommeled dagger sheathed in dyed kidskin on her belt. Is she expecting a fight? Raseed resolved to be even more watchful than usual.
The inn where they were meeting Litaz’s contact was in the Round City, the innermost part of Dhamsawaat. A sixty-foot wall of massive, sun-dried bricks surrounded the Round City, with great gates of iron in its northern and southern sections. The pair joined a line of people making their way through the North Inner Gate and, in a short time, reached the gate itself. As they walked through, Litaz smiled and nodded at one of the watchmen on duty. The man eyed Raseed’s habit and sword but said nothing.
As soon as they passed through the gate they turned from the huge gray paving stones of the Mainway. Litaz led the way confidently and Raseed followed. They rounded a corner and stepped onto Goldsmith’s Row, a paved lane that was narrower than the Mainway but still quite broad. Leaving behind the press of pedestrians and shouting porters already building up, the pair joined a traffic flow that was decidedly quieter and less crowded.
Litaz bit her lower lip and mumbled to herself, obviously deep in thought. So Raseed remained silent and took in his surroundings. He had been in Dhamsawaat for nearly two years now, but he’d never been down Goldsmith’s Row. He looked about with interest.
Tidy storefronts and splendid houses lined the street here, the crude, open, stone windows of the Scholars’ Quarter replaced by fine sandalwood screens and, in the more opulent shops, leaded glass. Though one could walk here from the Scholars’ Quarter in less than an hour, the two neighborhoods were a world apart.
Here were the homes and shops of Abassen’s wealthiest merchants and most distinguished craftsmen—elite importers and perfumers, gemcutters and jewelers, bookbinders and glassblowers. Here also, in decadently furnished mansions, lived the courtiers and viziers and their families—those who did not live at the palace itself. Raseed marveled at how few people there were, and what little noise they made.
No doubt many of them were home preparing meals for the Feast of Providence, which was this evening. But there was more to it than that, Raseed thought. This was the sort of place where one could be alone with one’s meditations. The streets of the Scholars’ Quarter were never this quiet, or this empty, or this clean. Raseed envied the residents the solemnity of their surroundings. No great stinking puddles. No loud donkey-whipping. No hashi smoke drifting in the window. No muttering madmen. Would that I had a place like this to meditate and train. He tried to smother this unacceptable covetousness. O Believer! Worship God wherever fate finds thee—whether prison, prairie, or Prayersday table, the Heavenly Chapters say.
His service with the Doctor did not bring him into contact with the overfed inhabitants of the Round City. It was probably just as well. The denizens of the Doctor’s home quarter disgusted Raseed with their degeneracy and lewdness. But while the hashi-smokers and whores of the Scholars’ Quarter were foul, the men and women here were perhaps even more foul. Here was wealth, as much wealth as anywhere in the Crescent Moon Kingdoms. Here was every opportunity for virtue and learning, with none of the dire incitements to vice that poverty brought. But the Doctor claimed that the people of Goldsmith’s Row ignored such opportunity, using their incalculable riches only to devise new and more luxuriant vices.
Partner, he had called Raseed the other night. But Raseed was unworthy. He’d said nothing to the Doctor or the others about his encounter with Pharaad Az Hammaz. About taking the stolen goods the thief had given him. He hadn’t gone so far as to utter a falsehood—when he’d returned to the Soo couple’s shop and Litaz had asked after his dusty silks and disheveled appearance, he’d put off her questions, and she hadn’t pressed him. The wrongness of it burned his soul, like a foretaste of the Lake of Flame.